Boomer teachers retiring — should their replacements get $100,000?
In response to my recent “rant” about the state of writing, several commenters stated their opinions that teacher pay should be raised.
My first reaction to this statement was negative. I have never seen that throwing money at a problem caused the problem to improve. But after I checked on Miranda’s suggested news story, I had different thoughts. The story is about the efforts of the school district administrator in Washington, D.C., to raise give teachers merit pay, and tie their merit increases to increases in student achievement.
With the retirement of many baby boomer teachers, and a possible shortage of teachers coming within the next 10 years, maybe it is time for us to look at increasing teacher pay. If $100,000 a year sounds like a lot, what would you pay to have your children taught by the best?
I’m with John McCain that we need to keep the great teachers and move the mediocre ones to other jobs. In McCain’s acceptance speech he said:
We need to shake up failed school bureaucracies with competition, empower parents with choice, remove barriers to qualified instructors, attract and reward good teachers, and help bad teachers find another line of work.
Would paying them top dollar and tying that pay to performance be possible? Like in businesses? What a concept!