$125,000 a year salary

Many years ago as a student teacher, my instructor passed out an interesting flyer that responded to the comment that teachers are nothing more than "glorified babysitters." It basically "did the math" and found that if teachers were paid five dollars an hour for each one of their students for 180 days they would be worth about 9 million dollars or something unimaginable like that. {hmmm...lets see...30 children, 8 hour day, 180 days, 5 dollars a day...5 dollars a day for 8 hours = 40 dollars a day x 30 children = 1200, 1200 x 180 days...okay its about 216,000 dollars a year but then again - what babysitter only gets five dollars an hour for babysitting!?)

 

Back to the point, there is a New York city charter school who has attracted teachers from around the country with, at least, a salary of 125,000 dollars a year. Not bad change if you ask me but the rationale is what I am troubled by...it says that education can be reformed by the quality of the teacher in the room.

 

I agree that the quality of teacher is a factor - we need great teachers in our classrooms. However, how do we determine what is a great teacher? One who follows the curriculum carefully? One who responds to the emerging ideas from a more free-flowing curriculum? One who is very strict? One who has a much more family-style classroom? I don't know and further - not every style of "teacher" will develop a rapport with every child - so I do not know about this aspect I just don't believe that only a great teacher can offset the other factors in a child's success. There are more factors and here are some I ask you to consider:

* a child's socioeconomic background has a great deal to do with their success. I say this because there are differences in the way the receive services, are given support and perceive their own aspirations. I have read about and heard enough students, especially children of color, who do not even perceive of academic success and a future in higher education to know that being poor affects the way one builds their dreams.

 

* a child's motivation and development LONG before they enter the public school. Erikson, Piaget, Maslow and a cadre of others have provided the evidence that children's experiences in early childhood are formative in a way that we couldn't even imagine fifty or sixty years ago and it is high time that teachers (and critics of teachers) realize that they must be far more affective and family-style oriented in order to undo years of influence during infancy.

 

* freedom from prescribed curriculum. Teachers need to be left to their own devices to create student-centered curriculum that responds to the needs of children. Standardized, federal tests that take four days to administer and three weeks of preparation are taking over curriculum planning and children suffer. Time and again folks like Carol Ann Tomlinson have talked about providing appropriate curriculum for gifted children when the truth is teachers ought to do better than their best to provide curriculum that relies on his or her students' interests or ability level (and even then differentiate those lessons).

 

* finally (though not exhaustively), money for resources outside of the classroom. As I have written before, children's success in education could be dramatically increased if their families didn't have to worry about certain things like food, toiletries, social services, health insurance, and so on. So rather than spend 125000 dollars on a teacher - give the teacher 100,000 dollars and spend the other 25,000 on health services or a center for social services or a bank of toiletries and clothing or a food bank near or on the school site for families so that mothers (and sometimes fathers) aren't forced to have three jobs, no time for their children and exhaustion when they finally do have time.

 

Like I said in a class of pre-service teachers who were earning their ESOL licensure - we have to stop talking about what we are going to do for english language learners or children in poverty - because we are no longer "preparing for their arrival" - they are here. We can no longer wait for it to rain to crack open the rainy day fund - its storming - its flooding - its time!