Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion CNN- U.S. should pay math & science teachers more

U.S. students behind in math, science, analysis says

www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/25/students.science.math?iref=mpstoryview

Although this is an unpopular opinion with the teacher's unions, I wholeheartedly agree with paying math and science teachers more money. I am currently teaching gifted math/science in a self-contained gifted classroom (multi-age), and I love my job. However, my brother, who was also interested in teaching at one point, decided to go into engineering because of the much higher pay scale. The difference? I started my first year of teaching (13 years ago) making $24,000. His first job paid $56,000. How can we entice our best and brightest to inspire future generations when we must rely on those who will give up a comfortable lifestyle because they love what they do? Granted, the talented ones who do make their lives a labor of love. However, my brother lives in a nicer neighborhood in a home that costs 3 times what mine does. He can afford to pay for any activity in which his children want to participate, while my husband and I are forced to pick and choose what our kids can do. I am good at my job and happy with my choice, but I know my brother would also have made an excellent math or science teacher and probably would have chosen that route as well if the pay scales were even close.

When I went to college, a lot of the people choosing education as a major did so because they couldn't really do anything else. Seriously, who but the most dedicated of individuals signs on for low pay, little respect, and often what amounts to glorified babysitting every day? I've worked in my share of Title I environments, and believe me, it's no picnic. The burnout rate is high and the administrators either end up with long term subs teaching the math/science courses, or have to hire the bottom of the barrel because there are no quality applicants who want to teach in those places. Thus the shortages.

If we upped the math/science salaries, perhaps teaching those subjects would gain more prestige and we'd attract more people like my highly gifted brother - quality math/science people who would actually CHOOSE teaching as a career rather than be lured away from it by the promise of higher pay and greater respect.

Just my 2 cents.

I'm not convinced that we can. Add to this problem the fact that pay increases are 100% tied to seniority and 0% tied to meritorious work, and the problem gets worse.


This is also a sad fact of our teacher training system. I've looked closely at the curricula that prospective teachers have to follow, and what I've seen isn't terribly demanding. The over-emphasis on fluffy topics and the under-emphasis on subject mastery are major problems and almost certainly discourage very bright people.


Maybe, but I think the problem is much larger than the salaries. If the degree requirements were more stringent, people in the field would have more respect. When I was in high school (80s; two schools) the math teachers all had degrees in mathematics, and many had graduate degrees in the subject. For them, calculus was trivial. We definitely respected those people.

Educators as a group will get more respect when the bar in the field gets raised. I've spent way too much time at education conferences and elsewhere listening to people complain that we need to develop strategies for teaching math to the teachers so that they can pass it on to their students. I've heard too many people in the field argue that approaches like "no right answer" and group-learning in mathematics education are sound practices. And don't even get me started on multiple choice tests, whole-language reading, lockstep curricula, and giftedness-is-elitism.

Bottom line: respect is earned. Although many individual teachers earn it in spades, the field as a whole is dominated by some dubious ideas that need to be reformed. True, things are really, really bad under NCLB, but they were already really bad before it came along.

Just my 2c!!

Val

I would just like to see kids actually get science! Before we pulled DS6 out of school this week, we found out that they only taught Science in First Grade during their once a week science lab for 30 minutes and that was it!!!!! I was in shock! I am also not surprised when I hear how far behind we are in math...the same thing goes with not enough math instruction...here in Florida, teachers are required to have a 2.5 hour reading block - so where does that leave math, science, and history?

H1B holders are in demand because they do not want as much money as US-born engineers AND its a lot easier to import talent than it is to develop it here.

If you accept that 90% of GT kids are never identified, then we have a HUGE number of techies sitting in our schools. A program to ID and guide these kids into magnet schools in each major metro area would solve the tech gap in 10 years or less. We could triple the PHDs in 5 years after that.

But, we are caught up in this "fairness" mirage. Most kids cannot play varsity football - just as most kids cannot become engineers or PHDs. We have tremendous athletic programs at almost ALL schools, but the academics in comparison SUCK!!!

I'm trying to recall something I read some time ago. Many teachers are female. Back in the day, a teacher's salary was supplemental income to her husband's salary. So it's difficult to see a starting teacher's salary as a viable profession for a male who needs to support a family. And with girls not being fostered into math and science fields back in the day, that field was dominated by men.

Also, I know several scientists who would love to teach highschool science but don't want to spend 2 years taking useless education courses. I am qualified to teach college courses but I can't teach high school courses w/out education credits. It is my understanding from scientists friends who have gone this route, the 2yrs of education courses didn't help them w/ teaching in the classroom. I think a mentorship program, apprenticeship would be the way to go.

What happened to supply and demand? If some is scarce, such as quality math and science teachers, you pay more for it.

In Singapore, they have dedicated math teachers. Their job is to teach math, not reading and social studies and spelling. My friend who teaches elementary says that most teachers she knows spends the least amt of time on math as they can get away with. And science, they'd rather have teeth extracted.

My son's 2nd grade teacher how afraid she is of science. But she just tells the kids, "I don't know, let's look it up." I applauded her for that at least. I went in regularly to do science w/ the kids. She said she usually sent the kids to my son when they had questions regarding science and he always knew the answer.

Austin, I agree that we are mired in a "fairness" quagmire.

Although the starting salary differential was significant, the teacher gets a tremendous amount of time offz. And the engineer has liability as a PE. What is the teacher's liability if they don't teach well? None.

I don't think it is salary. I did some substitute teaching for the head of the math dept at my high school when I was in college. It was challenging for a week, and interesting. Nothing I could do for a lifetime. Teaching the same stuff year in and year out is not appealing to a lot of people. You have to really want to teach and the great benefits that come with it. Job security (unless you sleep with our students), lots of time off. And once you set your classes, you can keep those year after year with minor modifications.

Combining the benefits, the job security and the time off, there are a lot of women who choose teaching. Now what we need to do is get more women interested in math and science. I thought that is where the big problem laid. When I was in engineering, only 4% of the class was female. Now I really like math and science, didn't like engineering since I don't like noisey, mechanical things. (yes, I did civil -- but took too long to make good money in civil) but I wouldn't go into teaching because the job doesn't suit me. And you cannot change that aspect for people who are good in math and science. And I don't see the job paying 200K with all the job security it offers.

Ren

Where we live, and all of IL I believe, teacher pay increases are tied to their gaining advanced degrees, in addition to seniority. The problem, in my opinion, is that they mostly all pursue graduate degrees and even PhDs in education or educational administration rather than the subject they teach.

I fail to understand how this helps improve student mastery of math, science or any other academic area.