This month's TIME magazine has an article in it about how to make better teachers. The article was interesting in itself, but I found the statistics more interesting. Did you know there are 3.2 million teachers in U.S. public schools? That excludes all private schools as well. With all those teachers, we need 2.8 million more by 2015. The average salary of a teacher is $47,602. Teachers quit the profession for a myriad of reasons, such as: too much load, not enough time to prepare, classes are too large, poor salary and benefits, and student behavioral problems. Another aspect of the article that caught my eye was a column on how to measure merit. What is the difference between a C paper and an A paper? Its gonna be our job to determine that. I guess being a good teacher takes the bear minimum and running way past that. It'll probably be hard, but its supposed to be a job, right?
--Mike
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It's astounding to think that there are that many teachers out there. But I suppose with the growing number leaving the profession, there is a door open to all of us... good thing too! But when it comes to that median salary, it makes me think there are a ton of first and second year teachers with low wages skewing the data. I know of teachers who have been teaching for a long time, perhaps with additional incomes from coaching and such like, but they're looking at nearly $100,000 a year. Maybe New Jersey just pays well, I don't know.
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