According to the New York Times, this is a great time to be a veteran public schoolteacher:
This is not a pipe dream. Remember, it happens at Lincoln Center Institute. I have no idea how.
Of course, we'll have to professionalize our field a bit. We'll also need to make sure cash-strapped districts aren't thinking about using underpaid TAs to outsource some of those high salaried public schoolteachers' jobs.
I don't know. In this time of budget cuts, I think to really convince public schoolteachers that we are not a potential threat to their job security, we'll probably have to lie.
Valerie Huff, a math teacher at East High (in Rochester, New York,) a tough urban school, made more than $102,000 last year.Public schoolteachers are our natural allies in the struggle for a living wage, health care and a pension plan. I think we should follow their shining example and join hands with them, if they'll let us.
“A good salary? I wouldn’t disagree with you,” Ms. Huff said. “Took me a long time to get there.” She started teaching in 1978 for $11,250 a year and, in those early days, worked a second job, bartending, to make ends meet.
But in the late 1980s, teacher salaries took a jump across the country, and they just kept improving, to the point that now, with the economic collapse, a lot of people who sneered at teachers, wish they had it so good.
Health insurance? “My health care is free,” Ms. Huff said.
Security? “Long as there’s kids, I have a job.”
This is not a pipe dream. Remember, it happens at Lincoln Center Institute. I have no idea how.
Of course, we'll have to professionalize our field a bit. We'll also need to make sure cash-strapped districts aren't thinking about using underpaid TAs to outsource some of those high salaried public schoolteachers' jobs.
I don't know. In this time of budget cuts, I think to really convince public schoolteachers that we are not a potential threat to their job security, we'll probably have to lie.
