I think teachers should be contractors. Good ones will be sought out and paid top dollar, bad ones can work at Quik-E-Mart.
I’m getting a little tired of the excuses from teachers who suck. Last night we defeated a $22 million dollar bond measure to build a new school. They claimed they need a new school for a better “learning environment”. A good teacher could teach in a barn and do just fine.
Teachers that are proven performers are worth more to our country than the politicians who represent us and should be paid accordingly. People like Dr. Steve Perry are worth more to America than our congress.
(IMO, he does more for our country than congress does, too.)
I agree. Turn them loose in the free market, pay for results (as defined by the employer). Golly, that sounds like most normal people's jobs, doesn't it?
Maybe it's not that teachers are overpaid, but that day-care workers are underpaid, because in many cases, that's all the "teachers" really are: supervisors of the juvie inmates for as many hours as the parents can get the general public to support.
I had a relative who was following the union line and complaining about how basketball players like Michael Jordan (which tells you about when it happened) made millions while teachers were underpaid. I responded that if they had the top 300* or so teachers in the country teach classes to every student in their subject and grade by video those few teachers could make millions, while all but those top 300 could be laid off. She didn't like that idea one bit.
*I picked 300 because it was about the number of NBA players at the time.