6 posts tagged “money”

Part Two of the MTC 2007 Summer Intern film.  Watch Part One here.

Per Pupil Spending of Public Schools in the U.S.

This started out as a reply to Holly’s comment on my previous post and grew from there (Holly, I appreciate the comments.  As I'm sure y'all know by now, I love a good difference of opinion)...

Does money matter when it comes to teaching?

The highest-paid profession in the US, according to Forbes, is anesthesiology, with a mean salary of $184,000.  To become an anesthesiologist requires 12 years of specialized training, including an undergraduate major in pre-med (or a hard science), admission to medical school, three years of medical school, and a one-year residency.  Along the way, the future anesthesiologist must pass the MCAT and become board certified (by comparison, 9% of teachers in Mississippi are board-certified, which ranks us 3rd in the nation).  Each one of these steps is a highly competitive process.  The bar is set incredibly high.  Yet, there is no shortage of anesthesiologists in this country.  To become a certified teacher, in Mississippi, requires a four-year degree in any subject from any college in the country with a minimum GPA of 2.5, passing scores on the Praxis I and II (about the easiest standardized test on the planet), and completion of an eight-week online program from Teach Mississippi Institute (or three weeks with “Alternate Pathways”).  The bar is set incredibly low.  Yet, we have a huge shortage.  And a mean salary of $40,000.

Do you have to be motivated by altruism to be a good teacher?

I am completely uninterested in a person's motivation to become a teacher.  If someone is a good teacher, who cares why he or she became a teacher?  If we pay teachers a million dollars a year, and people become teachers primarily for the money, and they are good at it, great.  Put another way, if you have to love the profession of teaching to be a great teacher, why should we pay teachers anything?

If the first-year teaching salary was a million dollars, the teacher shortage would end tomorrow.  Over five years, tens of thousands of low-performing teachers would be flushed from the profession by the influx of good teachers.  Teacher-training programs would become competitive and could raise standards rather than being a cash-cow for the universities.  Low-performing education majors would be washed out because there would no longer be pressure to turn out certified teachers to address the teacher shortage...

Would you rather earn $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000, or would you rather earn $100,000 a year while other people get $250,000?  Answer here, in a piece called "Why People believe Weird Things About Money."

The School of Education at the University of Mississippi is one of the best in the nation according to NCATE, the national accreditation council for Schools of Ed.  What do you think?

Why We Flirt...

The Library of Congress has put thousands of tagged photos on Flickr.  Search for Mississippi, Mississippi Delta, or anything else that strikes your fancy.

NYC is measuring teachers by test scores...

Finally, two pieces about the decline of the American newspaper here and here by David Simon, the creator of "The Wire" (by the way I'm not happy with the serial killer storyline being played out this season) and one of the greatest living authors on the planet...

Last Saturday, second-year Ashley Johnson and I showed Lauryn Smith, the fabulous MTC intern, around the Mississippi Delta.  We toured Greenwood and Money and parts in between.

Money is the small town where Emmit Till was tortured and murdered (interestingly enough, Till's Wikipedia page has caused a heated debate).  The store, where he committed the unpardonable crime of whistling at a white woman, is still standing (barely).  Photos of the trip are below.  More photos here...