# Is the U.S. behind in the sciences?



## Wereserpent (Feb 15, 2005)

It seems to me that the U.S. is lagging behind in the sciences, not I am no expert, so I can not tell for sure.  But it seems like all the advancements in science are happening in Asia and also some wester European countries too.  Now, I know we do have people from all over here, so maybe they could say something too.


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## drothgery (Feb 15, 2005)

That's not just wrong, but wildly wrong. If you look at objective measures (patents awarded, money spent on research, number of PhDs produced, etc.), the US dominates most fields. This isn't saying that interesting work isn't happening in other countries, but a lot more happens here. 

In the field I'm most familiar with (I work for a life science supply company) -- almost no significant drug research takes place outside the US -- even the largest European companies have their major research labs in the US.


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## Meloncov (Feb 16, 2005)

Lagging behind, no. However, the relative position of our sciences to those of other countries are not as far apart as the once were, and the gap continues to close.


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## WayneLigon (Feb 16, 2005)

I don't think so, and I try to ignore most of the school horror stories I hear as usual scare tactics from the media. I'm not in the field, though, so I don't know what's true and what's false. I do know two teachers personally (one at a public, one at a private school) and they both lament the quality of education. Neither one is a science teacher, though, so I'm unsure how they view the general quality of science education. 

I think that we could do a lot better in instilling an appreciation for science and scientists in our children. Science has taken a real beating as far as public image goes and that needs to be changed.


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## Wereserpent (Feb 16, 2005)

drothgery said:
			
		

> That's not just wrong, but wildly wrong. If you look at objective measures (patents awarded, money spent on research, number of PhDs produced, etc.), the US dominates most fields. This isn't saying that interesting work isn't happening in other countries, but a lot more happens here.
> 
> In the field I'm most familiar with (I work for a life science supply company) -- almost no significant drug research takes place outside the US -- even the largest European companies have their major research labs in the US.




Ahhh, ok.  It just seemed to me that a lot of other countries were jumping ahead while the U.S. was lagging.


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## Stone Angel (Feb 16, 2005)

Well whatever the case we could do better, but I do not believe that we are struggling and eventually will be assimilated by another nation that has much better science.


The Seraph of Earth and Stone


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## Umbran (Feb 16, 2005)

It also depends upon what you call "lagging behind", and who you're comparing to.

As an example - one would expect the US to lead ahead of any particular European nation.  However, if you look at the European Union as a whole - they have a higher population, higher gross domestic product, and so on.  You'd expect the US to be behind the EU.


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## tarchon (Feb 16, 2005)

If we're lagging, all we need to do is add more reactance of opposite sign to the load.


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## der_kluge (Feb 16, 2005)

I think one area where the U.S. could lag behind is in embryonic stem cell research. We place a great amount of concern over the cloning and use of embryonic stem cells - cells which will be destroyed regardless, and could be used to cure diabetes, alzheimers, and other diseases.  Japan, and Europe have no such qualms, so while we bicker over politics in these areas, it seems likely that the next great advancements here could come from other countries.


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## reanjr (Feb 16, 2005)

drothgery said:
			
		

> That's not just wrong, but wildly wrong. If you look at objective measures (patents awarded, money spent on research, number of PhDs produced, etc.), the US dominates most fields. This isn't saying that interesting work isn't happening in other countries, but a lot more happens here.
> 
> In the field I'm most familiar with (I work for a life science supply company) -- almost no significant drug research takes place outside the US -- even the largest European companies have their major research labs in the US.




You can't use patents awarded because different countries award patents differently.  U.S. policy is to award a patent when in doubt and let someone fight it if that decision was wrong.


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## reanjr (Feb 16, 2005)

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> I don't think so, and I try to ignore most of the school horror stories I hear as usual scare tactics from the media. I'm not in the field, though, so I don't know what's true and what's false. I do know two teachers personally (one at a public, one at a private school) and they both lament the quality of education. Neither one is a science teacher, though, so I'm unsure how they view the general quality of science education.
> 
> I think that we could do a lot better in instilling an appreciation for science and scientists in our children. Science has taken a real beating as far as public image goes and that needs to be changed.




I've read single science books that cover more science than 12 years of American public education.  I KNOW our science education is poor, at least at the secondary level.  Whether this causes us as a nation to fall behind in the real world, I can't tell for sure.  There are always those who will go above and beyond their education and those people are the ones likely to perform major breakthroughs.

As to the second part, what we need is another World War.  That'll fix our science education and appreciation lag real quick.


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## drothgery (Feb 16, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> As an example - one would expect the US to lead ahead of any particular European nation.  However, if you look at the European Union as a whole - they have a higher population, higher gross domestic product, and so on.  You'd expect the US to be behind the EU.




... and you'd be wrong, but you'd only expect that if you're making a naive estimate. The EU has a 55% larger population, but less than a 1% larger GDP, and about 2/3rds the per capita GDP; EU v. NAFTA and the EU's got roughly a 5% larger population, 15% smaller economy, and 80% of the per capita GDP (Mexico's slighltly poorer than eastern European EU countries, and has more people than the ex-east-block part of the EU; Canada's roughly on par with the richest western European EU countries, and is a bit less populous than Spain or Poland).


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## Fenris (Feb 16, 2005)

die_kluge said:
			
		

> I think one area where the U.S. could lag behind is in embryonic stem cell research. We place a great amount of concern over the cloning and use of embryonic stem cells - cells which will be destroyed regardless, and could be used to cure diabetes, alzheimers, and other diseases.  Japan, and Europe have no such qualms, so while we bicker over politics in these areas, it seems likely that the next great advancements here could come from other countries.




Yeah other countries like the Free State of California   
Part of the passing of the recent ballot initiative here was to do exactly that, _NOT_ fall behind other countries or even other regions of this country. Just as the Silicon Valley dominated tech development, so the thought goes, that Califonia can, by staking an early claim become the stem cell leader. 

But as a scientist, I will say one thing. You tend to get more..... specialization in other countries. In many other countries, there are a few very well funded areas of expertise. Whether you look within disciplines or across them, some countries put the bulk of their research funds in very specific areas. And in those areas they are very good. But nobody matches the US in terms of breadth. We have out fingers in everybody's pudding (some not even our own   

But science is more and more international these days, with far more international collaborations to advance science. The game of "scientist red rover" that got played at the end of WWII is a thing of the past. My collegue's research that aids me may come from Michigan or Spain. Good science takes precedent.


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## Conaill (Feb 16, 2005)

Yes, science education in the US is pretty bad compared to other developed countries. No, the US is not lagging behind in science.

Huh?

The simple explanation is that there has been a huge brain drain of the world's best and brightests towards the US, partly because the US does spend an awful lot of money on research. In that particular aspect, the US really is the "land of opportunity". 

One worrying trend is that this influx of foreign talent is very rapidly decreasing, mainly because of all the new visa regulations and hassles the US is imposing on foreign students and researchers. 

One other interesting observation... the US is actually lagging behind on other ares of the world in certain technologies, due to... a lack of regulation! For example, europe and asia have been ahead in cell phone technology for years because they long ago decided to standardize their cell phone systems, whereas the US still has 3-4 competing systems each requiring their own trasmission towers.


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## Daalbar (Feb 16, 2005)

I think that by any objective measure, the US lags behind most countries in the EU rather badly when it comes to overall science and math education at the primary and secondary school levels. Canada, where I was educated, may have been somewhat better, but not too much. I remember my father, who was educated in the former Yugoslavia in the early 50's being amazed that I was only starting to do Calculus in high school... he's had it in the equivalent of grades 6 and 7 and I wouldn't be surprised if many of you with immigrant parents knew of something similar (though to be fair, many of his peers at that time never went too far beyond that level of education).

The average level of science literacy in North America is poor. Don't mistake the achievements of the top 10-15% of students for overall awareness/ability.

The saving grace of the US is and has been not only the quality of the very best post-secondary institutions that can be found here, but also the quality and number of even what might be considered "average" post-secondary institutions. They take that top 10-15% and provide some of the best opportunities in the sciences -- enough so that many of the best and brightest are also drawn from oversees. Graduate students are frequently from foreign nations and many end up staying, starting technical businesses, becoming doctors, researchers or professors. Where would many of the computer-related startups in California be if not for motivated foreign students? Non-existent... But those foreign students got that initial science and math training in their home countries.

I am a recent PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology and grew up in Toronto, Canada. I cringe every time I hear yet another case of a county somewhere in Georgia or West Virginia putting stickers on Biology textbooks or insisting on the teaching of "intelligent design" alongside evolution. This sort of thing won't overtly interfere with the learning of chemistry or mathematics but it seems to me that it undermines the understanding of what scientific principles are... the very process of what it means to "do" science and diminishes a respect for science as "just another version of reality" that is no more relevant than any other, rather than as the only objective method we have of measuring the physical universe.

I've been a TA for labs in Introductory Biology on a couple of occasions and never fail to be surprised at the lack of scientific literacy among the students... subsequent  higher-level classes are always a vast improvement -- but only because those who pursue further studies in biology are the ones who are already knowlegable and eager (and are at least somewhat gifted and are probably the sort who already used to watch the Science Channel for fun on their own time when they were in high school).


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## Umbran (Feb 16, 2005)

Daalbar said:
			
		

> The average level of science literacy in North America is poor. Don't mistake the achievements of the top 10-15% of students for overall awareness/ability.




This is part of what I mean by askign what "lagging behind" means.  What's more important - that the general public have a low level of knowledge, or that there's much advancement on the high end?


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## Darkness (Feb 16, 2005)

By the way, I hope this thread can stay friendly* and non-political.

Should someone fail to do so, please don't respond to the post and use the report post button. Thanks.

(*Please keep comments like "making a naive estimate" and "we need another World War," no matter the intent, to yourself.)


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## Rel (Feb 16, 2005)

Daalbar said:
			
		

> I think that by any objective measure, the US lags behind most countries in the EU rather badly when it comes to overall science and math education at the primary and secondary school levels.




I think you're probably right about this and I think it is because we've saddled ourselves with a "one size fits all" public education system.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that many (if not most) European countries tended to try and start directing students toward a likely career path at a relatively early age (in the 12-14 range).  Those who wanted (and were suited) to move into technical trades were directed into schools that would teach them those skills while those who wished to pursue "white collar" jobs were sent in another direction and those interested in the sciences were sent in yet another.  The concentration of sciences and math in the lower grades were partially in there as a determinant for which students had a preference and aptitude for those fields.

Here in the US we have this concept of "no child left behind" that is intended to insure that they don't ignore kids who perform poorly in any subject.  That's a laudable goal but I think it has had an effect of "dumbing down" our educational system and lowering the bar to see to it that fewer kids are "left behind" by virtue of making it easy to keep up with the work that is presented.

To use a metaphor, if you've got a group of people who are running from point A to point B and one of their goals is to make sure that nobody is left behind then they must do one of two things.  They either assign an individual to help drag along each other individual who starts to lag or they have the whole group move slower so that fewer can be defined as "falling behind".  To extend the metaphor to Europe (and again, this understanding was from years ago when I took French and our teacher was telling us about the educational systems of Europe) they seem to have adopted the attitude of, "Not everybody can get from A to B at the same speed.  In fact, not everybody can get to B at all.  That's no reason to slow the others down in their progress."

I'll not comment further on the political attitudes this has spawned in me regarding public schools in the US.  But suffice it to say that I think the current system is deeply flawed.


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## Thornir Alekeg (Feb 16, 2005)

Part of the problem with US science and math education is the way it is taught.  The memorization of facts and algorithms tends to be the norm for teaching science and math.  Many times this is a reaction to standardized testing used to measure the effectiveness of the schools.  Teach to the test.  It may work OK for areas like language arts and social studies, but in math and science to really excel people need to have a understanding of the methods and concepts, not just the facts.  They need to learn how to apply the knowledge in situations where the known facts do not yet exist.  There are progams out there that try and achieve this goal, and it is my understanding that they seem to be effective, but they are more difficult to measure with standardized tests, they need more training to be able to teach, and they often find resistance from parents, teachers, administrators, politicians etc. who don't like things that are new and more difficult for them to understand.

Outside of the education system, I do not think the US lags behind, I think we are a leader, but we could do more and be more.


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## d20fool (Feb 16, 2005)

*Science and Math in US*

I'm a teacher of 5th grade students, in my 5th year, and the President of our local NEA chapter. I keep my ear to the ground about what is happening on the scence internationally.

It is hard to draw comparisions, because there is NO standization among tests for either countries or even states.  The standard students are judged by differ from nation to nation.  Experts try to reconcile these differences, but it makes it impossible to make a simple comparison.  Having said that, here are some of my impressions.

America is behind in science and math.  Science education suffers from poor representation in the elementary levels (ironically, when students like science the most) and many schools have low science requirements to get a diploma.  Further, America suffers like no other country from religious agenda.  Although attempts to force religious agenda in the classroom almost universally fail, schools often remove ANYTHING that smacks of evolution, fossil record, geologic time scale, and anthropology as a result.  I teach science to two classes, and I tread very carefully through these topics; although I don't avoid them.  Our district has NO evolution curriculum that I am aware of.

When it comes to math, many countries emphasize it more than we do.  Americans take the attitude that math is not necessary, which is unfortunate.  Other countries do tend to focus on math in the abstract, the way most of us are taught in school.  This is perhaps not the best way.  "New" methods (used for decades in some countries) emphasize the application of math in everyday life.  I think these programs will meet with great success if allowed to flourish, but many are mistrustful because they think there's only one way to do double-digit additiono or long subtraction, for example.

America is AHEAD in literacy, contrary to popular belief.  We start students reading long before other countries even start and offer formal training.  In Russia, parents teach their children to read (which means some have serious trouble) and in Europe many countries don't start until seven or so.  

Japan, famous for academic rigor, does have problems.  Although students are followed very carefully, Japan is just becoming aware that some students have learning disabilities.  Japan's top students shine, but they have many failures.

I ALL respects, New Zealand and Australia are KICKING OUR ACADEMIC @$$.  They have an aggressive, student-centered style of education that they have been pursuing for over 30 years and they do an excellent job.  Their minorities benefit more than any other  country's does.

Just my impressions,

John "d20fool" McCarty


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## d20fool (Feb 16, 2005)

*No Child Left on Their Behind*



			
				Rel said:
			
		

> I think you're probably right about this and I think it is because we've saddled ourselves with a "one size fits all" public education system.
> 
> Here in the US we have this concept of "no child left behind" that is intended to insure that they don't ignore kids who perform poorly in any subject.  That's a laudable goal but I think it has had an effect of "dumbing down" our educational system and lowering the bar to see to it that fewer kids are "left behind" by virtue of making it easy to keep up with the work that is presented.
> 
> I'll not comment further on the political attitudes this has spawned in me regarding public schools in the US.  But suffice it to say that I think the current system is deeply flawed.




A.) One size fits all is changing, depending on district, as more techniques from New Zealand are adopted.  My elementary did "one size fits all" when I arrived 5 years ago, now K-3 have individualized instruction.

B.) As for NCLB, nothing could be further from the truth.  Like all standardized tests and programs, they require far too much of the students.  Often, tests require a SPECIALIZED COLLEGE EDUCATION to answer correctly, a lot to ask of a 10 year old.  I've seen tests ask for names of bones in the hand, and back in Colorado (where I'm from) a team of English professors and Deans could not accurately complete the suppousedly High School level test.

NCLB goes on to state that ALL STUDENTS will be at adequate level by 2015 or so.  Yes, that means my severely autistic student who doesn't know his own address and can barely write his name will be adequate or we will have failed.   Furthermore, we have to have a 3% growth every year or else we are "failing", even if we are already successful.  It's a ridiculous program designed to make public schools look bad so voucher programs can be introduced to replace us.  After 50 years, it's the only chance for vouchers (favored by the wealthy) because the public consitently votes them down.  Voucher language was attempted in the original NCLB bill, struck down by my teacher's union.  God bless 'em.

C.) Any degree of flaws can be corrected by one thing, quality teachers.  Studies show no other single thing impacts a classroom like a quality teacher.  How to you attract quality teachers.  You have to get a little wild, a little crazy, think outside the box and PAY THEM.  Yep, that's what works.  The ol' pay-the-teacher trick.  

Honestly, there is NOT a teacher shortage in that there are not enough people qualified to teach.  There is a teacher shortage of people who can afford to teach.  Many leave or don't even start because of the pay.  I myself have to look at administration because my wife and I don't make enough to pay the bills.

John "d20fool" McCarty


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## Rel (Feb 16, 2005)

d20fool said:
			
		

> Studies show no other single thing impacts a classroom like a quality teacher.  How to you attract quality teachers.  You have to get a little wild, a little crazy, think outside the box and PAY THEM.  Yep, that's what works.  The ol' pay-the-teacher trick.
> 
> Honestly, there is NOT a teacher shortage in that there are not enought people qualified to teach.  There is a teacher shortage of people who can afford to teach.  Many leave or don't even start because of the pay.  I myself have to look at administration because my wife and I don't make enough to pay the bills.
> 
> John "d20fool" McCarty




I agree with you that quality teachers could do nothing but improve the educational situation we find ourselves in.  And I further agree that paying them more can only help attract better applicants.  These are commonly understood "market forces" that apply to most segments of our economy and I'm very much in favor of them.

The problem, as I see it, is the state-run, virtual monopoly of our public educational system.  Like any institution of its size it is laden with beurocracy and that beurocracy eats up a tremendous amount of the money that goes toward education in this country.  Furthermore the tenure system makes the firing of a bad teacher who has managed to hang in there for a few years nearly impossible barring some egregious misconduct.

If I had the money to send my child to private school then I would do so because I believe there is a greater degree of accountability to be found in a system where they have greater control over the academic environment (by virtue of not having to adhere to the standards set by the state and NEA).  I'm in favor of vouchers as a means of giving me a real choice in how my child is educated.  If that somehow makes me automatically wealthy then I wish somebody would hurry up and send me a big fat check so I don't have to worry about whether we'll be able to pay our bills each month.


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## Thornir Alekeg (Feb 16, 2005)

Rel said:
			
		

> If I had the money to send my child to private school then I would do so because I believe there is a greater degree of accountability to be found in a system where they have greater control over the academic environment (by virtue of not having to adhere to the standards set by the state and NEA).  I'm in favor of vouchers as a means of giving me a real choice in how my child is educated.  If that somehow makes me automatically wealthy then I wish somebody would hurry up and send me a big fat check so I don't have to worry about whether we'll be able to pay our bills each month.




My wife has taught at both private and public schools.  The private school was reputed to be an excelent school and was quite expensive to attend.  Her conclusion when all was said and done, the public and private schools came out about equal.  Each had some great strengths and serious weaknesses.  As for the quality of the teachers, both had a mix of excellent and mediocre teachers.  The pay, contrary to popular belief, was worse at the private school. Admittedly, she does now work in one of the better paying, better funded public school districts, but it shows that a good public school is easily as good as a private school.


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## Rel (Feb 16, 2005)

Thornir Alekeg said:
			
		

> My wife has taught at both private and public schools.  The private school was reputed to be an excelent school and was quite expensive to attend.  Her conclusion when all was said and done, the public and private schools came out about equal.




In no way am I disputing the validity of your anecdote.  But to me there still seems to be one big difference (at least as it applies to the place that I live):  If you send your child to private school then you send them to whatever school you like that, in your opinion as a parent, best serves their educational needs.  If your child attends public school then the county tells you where your child will be going.  If you want, for any reason, to change this, then you have to submit an application to them to let you change schools and they are not in any way compelled to give you what you ask for.  In fact they actively discourage this because "if they did this for everyone who asks then there would be chaos".

Imagine if the state ran the dry-cleaning industry and told you where your designated dry-cleaner was.  Imagine if they designated that your dry-cleaner was way across town.  Imagine that they designated a dry-cleaner that did a mediocre job.  Imagine that you had to apply for an exception if you wished to switch to a different dry-cleaner that was more convenient or did a better job.

I can't quite wrap my brain around why most people would be outraged if their choice of dry-cleaner was dictated in this way but they're just find with it being applied to their child's education.


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## Thornir Alekeg (Feb 16, 2005)

Rel said:
			
		

> Imagine if the state ran the dry-cleaning industry and told you where your designated dry-cleaner was.  Imagine if they designated that your dry-cleaner was way across town.  Imagine that they designated a dry-cleaner that did a mediocre job.  Imagine that you had to apply for an exception if you wished to switch to a different dry-cleaner that was more convenient or did a better job.
> 
> I can't quite wrap my brain around why most people would be outraged if their choice of dry-cleaner was dictated in this way but they're just find with it being applied to their child's education.




An interesting example.  I can't completely disagree with this, but at the same time, there is a lot more to public education than there is to running a dry cleaners.  I tried going into more of my thought on this, but it was getting a little too political, so I have edited it out.

In the end I think the best thing we can do is to fight like mad within the system to make it better for everyone's children - and not only during those years our own children are in the system.  Work to make it better before your kids get there, while your kids are there, and long after they are done, because that doctor prescribing your medications when you are 70 will have come through that same system.


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## Rel (Feb 16, 2005)

Thornir Alekeg said:
			
		

> I tried going into more of my thought on this, but it was getting a little too political, so I have edited it out.




I agree and I think I'll quit while I'm not behind. 



> In the end I think the best thing we can do is to fight like mad within the system to make it better for everyone's children - and not only during those years our own children are in the system.




I intend to do what I can within the system to try and get as good an education for my daughter as possible.  But I also don't think that there is so much great about the public education system that I'm not willing to try some radical alternatives.

In the interests of moving this away from politics and more toward the focus of these boards, I will say that one thing that saved me educationally was RPG's.  My desire to know things about history, science, art and literature that pertained to the games I played was enough to drive me to further study these topics.  And it kept me reading almost constanly when many of my classmates stayed as far from books they didn't HAVE to read as possible.  In many ways I feel like was educating myself through gaming better than most people were in my school.


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## Shemeska (Feb 16, 2005)

Almost the exact opposite. The US is a brain drain on the rest of the world. Research money in the US, especially private investments, occurs at a scale wildly above most any other nation, especially in the biological sciences (ie drugs).


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## Shemeska (Feb 16, 2005)

die_kluge said:
			
		

> I think one area where the U.S. could lag behind is in embryonic stem cell research. We place a great amount of concern over the cloning and use of embryonic stem cells - cells which will be destroyed regardless, and could be used to cure diabetes, alzheimers, and other diseases.  Japan, and Europe have no such qualms, so while we bicker over politics in these areas, it seems likely that the next great advancements here could come from other countries.




Not really IMHO. The situation now, as flawed as it might be, is better than during the Clinton years when there was a blanket ban on federal funding. The current situation is funding with restrictions on source. This doesn't impact private research whatsoever, and many people overlook that. Plus, it doesn't take into account the money that California just pumped into the area. Nor does it take into account that adult origin stemcells are not touched by the federal restrictions (and some of the most promising type I diabetes work has occured with adult spleen origin stem cells).

Japan and Europe may not have the same slim federal restrictions, but they aren't pumping the same level of money into the field either from any number of sources. And other nations have more restrictions on biological research than the US: witness the EU's modern day luddites trying to ban or restrict GMOs because it isn't "natural". Capitulation to ignorance, just as bad as not teaching evolution because of right wing concerns. Additionally, Canada has outright passed legislation restricting experimentation with animal/human chimeras. No country is immune to this bunk, nor is any single country the focus of ignorance, be it left wing or right wing influenced.


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## Desdichado (Feb 16, 2005)

"The sciences..."  That's a bit broad, don't you think?

Of course, the answer is also not as simple as all that; most Ph.D. programs in the States were (until 9/11 anyway, when visas suddenly became much more difficult to get) full of very large contingents of foreign students.  If we're not behind now, we may well be in the future.  It's a major concern of the US academic industry that their enrollment has been sharply curtailed, and it's been a major opportunity of other institutions around the world to pick up the slack, which they've done with gusto.

Or so my dad tells me anway.  He should know, though; he's a dean at Texas Tech.


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## Angcuru (Feb 16, 2005)

The US just doesn't pursue the controversial sciences that draw attention as much as other nations do.  Hence, you don't hear about the US making wild neato awesome advances as much as like in the EU and Japan, where scruples are hard to find and anything is game for research.

We're ahead, but not in a spectacularly visible manner.


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## Zappo (Feb 16, 2005)

You think you're lagging? My country, thanks to exceptionally good public schools and universities, and exceptionally stingy research funding, "exports" quality experts just about everywhere in the world. Ironically, this wastes even more money in the long run, since the state spends billions to teach people - who then go and bring their preparation abroad. It's depressing.


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## GentleGiant (Feb 17, 2005)

Angcuru said:
			
		

> The US just doesn't pursue the controversial sciences that draw attention as much as other nations do.  Hence, you don't hear about the US making wild neato awesome advances *as much as like in the EU and Japan, where scruples are hard to find and anything is game for research.*
> 
> We're ahead, but not in a spectacularly visible manner.



[Emphasis mine]
That's quite a broad and, to say the least, wildly offensive statement... care to back up your claim with hard facts or are you just mouthing off about something you don't know anything about?


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## Morrus (Feb 17, 2005)

d20fool said:
			
		

> and in Europe many countries don't start until seven or so.




_What?!? _ Where on earth did you hear that?

I mean, this conversation is in context of the Western world, right?  Poor Eastern European countries are really no more relevant to the conversation than poor African countries are.  I know of no Western country which starts teaching kids to read at _seven_.


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## Umbran (Feb 17, 2005)

d20fool said:
			
		

> Studies show no other single thing impacts a classroom like a quality teacher.




Huh.  d20fool, I'm suprised that you, a teacher yourself, would say this.  In my experience there is one thing that impacts a classroom more than a quality teacher - quality parenting.  Respect and desire for education begins at home.  And the teacher generally can't do diddly if the kids don't have it.  



> How to you attract quality teachers.  You have to get a little wild, a little crazy, think outside the box and PAY THEM.  Yep, that's what works.  The ol' pay-the-teacher trick.




Amen!  However, money doesn't grow on trees.  You know that respect and desire for education that begins at home?  Well, it's the parents who pay the taxes that go into teacher salaries.  



> Honestly, there is NOT a teacher shortage in that there are not enought people qualified to teach.  There is a teacher shortage of people who can afford to teach.




Well, that depends upon what you call "qualified".  There may be a great many people who have the technical knowledge of their fields to teach.  But teaching itself is a skill set that you don't usually get without doing it.  

Plus, it depends upon where you live.  In Massachusetts, for example, within the next two years, a full 40% of the public school teachers will become elegible for retirement with full benefits.  And in MA, while the salaries aren't up to corporate levels, the retirement package is pretty darned sweet for old-timers.  There's very little incentive for them to stay on, and MA may well have a serious shortage of people who are qualified to teach.  

I am not going to speak on the subject of NCLB.  I think of it as far too political to touch here.


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## Andre (Feb 17, 2005)

A couple points for consideration:

1. There seems to be a consensus that introductory education in the sciences is not terribly good in the United States. Advanced education in the sciences, however, attracts some of the best and brightest both within the United States and from around the world. This is a function of both money and opportunity, given the large number of universities and research centers within the U.S.

2. For decades, those who've come to the United States often stayed. It was a simple matter of the economic opportunities being so much greater in the U.S. than in their home countries. In some cases, e.g., India, the difference was 10,000% or more.

Concerning the second point, however, we've begun to see that international communications, such as the internet, are now sophisticated enough that these graduates can return to their home countries and still earn a very comfortable living - often doing work for American and European companies and even governments. 

This is not intended to be an "outsourcing is bad" observation. I'm simply wondering how much effect it will have on U.S. scientific advancement if this trend continues. A little? A lot?


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## R-Hero (Feb 17, 2005)

*Hats off to all EN worlders*

This is a subject, posted anywere else, would have evolved into an ugly flame war.

It has been thought provoking and (somewhat)freindly.  As a US. vet, I can get my feelings hurt easly when talking about my home.  I've seen few petty barbs here at EN World.

It says something for the class of people that play RPGs.  (Moderators included)

Huzzah!.


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## DaveStebbins (Feb 17, 2005)

reanjr said:
			
		

> You can't use patents awarded because different countries award patents differently.  U.S. policy is to award a patent when in doubt and let someone fight it if that decision was wrong.



OK, how about something more global, like the number of nobel prizes won in the sciences?


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## drothgery (Feb 17, 2005)

Morrus said:
			
		

> I mean, this conversation is in context of the Western world, right?  Poor Eastern European countries are really no more relevant to the conversation than poor African countries are.




Err... poor eastern European countries, for the most part, are much, much richer than poor African countries; South Africa is the only African country with a per capita GDP at roughly Eastern European levels (~$10,000); Albania is the only country in Europe with a per capita GDP at "rich African" levels (~$5000).


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## drothgery (Feb 17, 2005)

DaveStebbins said:
			
		

> OK, how about something more global, like the number of nobel prizes won in the sciences?




Okay, since 1999 (there were a lot of split Prizes, so well more than 5 were awarded in each discipline)

Physics 
Americans - 7
Non-Americans working in the US - 4
Others - 4

Chemistry
Americans - 7
Non-Americans working in the US - 3
Others - 5

Medicine
Americans - 6
Non-Americans working in the US - 3
Others - 5


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## Rel (Feb 17, 2005)

R-Hero said:
			
		

> It says something for the class of people that play RPGs.  (Moderators included)
> 
> Huzzah!.




I think it says something about the class of people at ENWorld.  I've not met a finer group of people anywhere, in person, online or otherwise.


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## Darkness (Feb 17, 2005)

Angcuru said:
			
		

> ... the EU and Japan, where scruples are hard to find ...



 That doesn't sound very nice to the EU and Japan.
From the context it seems to me that insult wasn't your intent, though, right?  Please be a little more careful with how you phrase things.  Thanks.


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## d20fool (Feb 17, 2005)

*Private school myths*



			
				Rel said:
			
		

> I agree with you that quality teachers could do nothing but improve the educational situation we find ourselves in.  And I further agree that paying them more can only help attract better applicants.  These are commonly understood "market forces" that apply to most segments of our economy and I'm very much in favor of them.
> 
> The problem, as I see it, is the state-run, virtual monopoly of our public educational system.  Like any institution of its size it is laden with beurocracy and that beurocracy eats up a tremendous amount of the money that goes toward education in this country.  Furthermore the tenure system makes the firing of a bad teacher who has managed to hang in there for a few years nearly impossible barring some egregious misconduct.
> 
> If I had the money to send my child to private school then I would do so because I believe there is a greater degree of accountability to be found in a system where they have greater control over the academic environment (by virtue of not having to adhere to the standards set by the state and NEA).  I'm in favor of vouchers as a means of giving me a real choice in how my child is educated.  If that somehow makes me automatically wealthy then I wish somebody would hurry up and send me a big fat check so I don't have to worry about whether we'll be able to pay our bills each month.




A. Thank you for agreeing with me on teacher pay.  You wouldn't believe the arguments against it.

B. Private schools vary widely in quality of education.  Students I receive from our local private schools often have trouble being independent and there is apparently no training in writing whatsoever other than copying out of a book.  That's just here though.  

There are some private schools that are excellent and their reputation seems to shine for all private schools.  This is not the case.  Private schools often have less money than public schools do, less qualified teachers, fewer and older books, etc.  Private schools are often more about agenda, political and religious, than education.

To give credit where it is due, I have had two students with severe problems go to private schools and do much better.  The very small class size was helpful.  Further, we have students called "tweeners" who have academic problems but don't qualify for special services that would benefit from a small classroom vs. a larger public classroom.  I have to admit that.  

Private schools do not have ANY of the safeguards and guarentees public school does.  Kid accused of a crime he didn't committ (seen it happen), he can't come to our school.  Wrong color or religion (seen that happen too), she's not welcome here.  Severe learning disability, no can do.  As for accountability, if you have a compliant, your child suddenly becomes "unsuitable" and you have no legal recourse.  Seen that happen as well.  

However, if you have a compliant about public school, you can lots.  You can petition the school board, write your congressman, get a lawyer.  I had one parent, angry over a state law that almost kept her A honor roll grandson in 5th grade a second year (low reading level) run for the school board where she's been for the last 4 years.  You have LOTS of power in your local schools, just take it.  I've seens groups of parents do very serious amounts of damage.

As for tenure, I can think of only two teachers in my time who needed to get the boot but couldn't because of tenure.  A move for a review system across many states will take care of that.  Honestly, there's not a hoard of "bad" teachers out there bogging the system down and it is too easy for a principal to run off any teacher they don't want anyway.  That is what happened to those two teachers, BTW.  

John "d20fool" McCarty


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## d20fool (Feb 17, 2005)

*Why we have public schools.*



			
				Rel said:
			
		

> Imagine if the state ran the dry-cleaning industry and told you where your designated dry-cleaner was.  Imagine if they designated that your dry-cleaner was way across town.  Imagine that they designated a dry-cleaner that did a mediocre job.  Imagine that you had to apply for an exception if you wished to switch to a different dry-cleaner that was more convenient or did a better job.
> 
> I can't quite wrap my brain around why most people would be outraged if their choice of dry-cleaner was dictated in this way but they're just find with it being applied to their child's education.




But you don't have a choice of post office, unless you want to drive further.  Or what policeman pulls you over for a speeding ticket, or what fireman comes to your house when it is burning down.  Education is not a dry cleaners, it's a state institution.  What you are asking for is consumer's choice when it comes to education.  Let's look at that a second.

You see, the whole voucher thing comes about with the premise that competition is good, ergo schools should be competitive.  This will give us better students, right?  Wrong.  That's because by the time the clients (the students) are in a position to reflect on whether or not they had a good education, it's already over.  

I automatically distrust any system that leaves children wide open for exploitation.  If each child comes with a fat voucher check, that school is going to be interested in keeping as much of that check as possible.  That means less qualified teachers who are paid less, poorer quality buildings, outdated curriculum (since new curriculum costs $) and so on.  Children find it hard to advocate for themselves in such a situation.  We would like to believe that parents would not subject their kids to such a school, but that simply is not the case.  They might not have a choice, if the only school in town that doesn't require extra money is that way.  Can't parents complain?  Sure, but when you're the bottom rung on the ladder there is no place else to go.

You can see why the wealthy like vouchers.  By supplementing their voucher, they can send their student to a quality school that is likely to give in to their input, while poorer parents have to send their kids to lower quality schools.  In one bold stroke, the wealthy get their private school AND more say in the school (they have a lot to say now in public schools, I HATE affluent parents) AND seperation of class.  Wow.

Vouchers are based on the capitalist presumption that competition is good.  However, this is based on greed.  Reducing students to dollar amounts can only be bad and undoes over a 100 years worth of work.  I think it's a seriously bad move and would rather talk about improving public schools than waste more time on an idea voters hate anyway.

Remember the two reasons for public schools is to 1.) produce better educated citizens for a better democracy.  This is hard to do if we have a variety of private schools producing students of differing quality.  2.) To keep kids from being exploited.  The reason for mandatory school attendance was to get kids out of factories.  Vouchers put kids right back in that exploitation category.  

John "d20fool" McCarty


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## d20fool (Feb 17, 2005)

*Glad to be wrong*



			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> _What?!? _ Where on earth did you hear that?
> 
> I mean, this conversation is in context of the Western world, right?  Poor Eastern European countries are really no more relevant to the conversation than poor African countries are.  I know of no Western country which starts teaching kids to read at _seven_.




A teacher who had visited Europe told me that Europeans believed children started acquiring literacy "naturally" at age seven.   I am so very glad to be wrong about that.  According to my information from Education Weekly, Europe does trail us in literacy but stomps us by a larger margin in math and science.


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## d20fool (Feb 17, 2005)

*Parents*



			
				Umbran said:
			
		

> Huh.  d20fool, I'm suprised that you, a teacher yourself, would say this.  In my experience there is one thing that impacts a classroom more than a quality teacher - quality parenting.  Respect and desire for education begins at home.  And the teacher generally can't do diddly if the kids don't have it.
> 
> Amen!  However, money doesn't grow on trees.  You know that respect and desire for education that begins at home?  Well, it's the parents who pay the taxes that go into teacher salaries.
> 
> ...




A.) Are you suggesting we pay parents to be good parents?  We have NO control over the parents.  We get the kids that we get.  Yes, good parents are important, but not consistant.  Teacher quality is something we can control, and studies show that a single, quality teacher has more impact than anything else.  I would love to hit the mom who refuses to give her kid medication with a mackerel, but I have to accept it while doing my best with her son and keeping him from kicking anybody.

B.) Most parents are more than willing to pay more taxes for education.  They are our voting base in our local bond issues.  It's folks without kids in school who don't like to pay teachers.

C.) Back in Colorado, there is an entire class of teachers who quit after several years becaus e they simply could not afford to teach and had to get a better paying job.  Insurance companies advertise in my teacher union magazine for exactly that reason, to recruit people.  

The upcoming wholesale retirement of teachers has been happening for the last 5 years or so.  I'm actually hoping for a teacher shortage.  Maybe somebody will pay us then.  We have a great retirement plan too, but I'm not quitting until they tell me to go home.


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## Devilkiller (Feb 17, 2005)

d20fool,

What grade/subject(s) do you teach? What is your yearly salary for the regular September-June or so school year? Also, do or could you make extra money from the school or school district for coaching sports, teaching summer school, etc? If so how much does or could that pay add up to? Finally, is your income close to the national average for teachers with your job description?

I have always heard complaints about the low pay of teachers, but I have never had a clear picture of just how much money it is that teachers make. Without that it is tough to tell whether or not their pay is "fair". Some folks would consider $40,000 chump change and insufficient to pay the bills. Others would consider it a "pretty good job". The same could be said of $30,000 or $70,000. Give us some numbers here? I can't see paying somebody $150,000/yr to teach 4 year olds to spell C-A-T, but if there are guys teaching Calculus to 17 year olds for $6/hour that's probably silly too.


----------



## reanjr (Feb 17, 2005)

DaveStebbins said:
			
		

> OK, how about something more global, like the number of nobel prizes won in the sciences?




That may be helpful, but if one country has two guys that happen to come up with wonderful new breakthroughs and win Nobels while the rest of the country has no scientists at all, it would certainly be skewed.  This would probably only be useful over a long period of time and to predict trends, but no good for a snapshot of whether one country was behind another.


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## reanjr (Feb 17, 2005)

d20fool said:
			
		

> I had one parent, angry over a state law that almost kept her A honor roll grandson in 5th grade a second year (low reading level) run for the school board where she's been for the last 4 years.




That's exemplary of the problem with public education.  The idea of grade levels is absolutely absurd.  Should the kid be pushed ahead to 6th grade without having proficiency in skills he/she will be required to utilize?  No.  Should the kid be kept in 5th grade due to deficiency in only one of numerous skills?  No.  The system from the ground up is designed to fail; or at least teach to the lowest common denominator, which IMO is failure.

Many private schools schools, especially at the secondary level, are much better at focusing on a child's skills and minimizing the impact of the weaknesses.

This probably varies from state to state (and maybe even on a district level), but everything I've ever seen indicates that public education is fairly similar across the country.



> As for tenure, I can think of only two teachers in my time who needed to get the boot but couldn't because of tenure.




Really?  I've been a student to two.  I'm all for higher teacher wages.  I'm also all for measuring performance and dropping those that consistently do poorly.

There is another problem, though, that our system does well at addressing.  What do you do with all the highly educated people that would come out of a better system?  It's bad enough that people with higher degrees can not work in their respective fields.  If the average high school student came out with Bachelor's level education (which is quite possible, though probably would not be as specialized), the problem of over-education would only get worse.


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## reanjr (Feb 17, 2005)

d20fool said:
			
		

> You see, the whole voucher thing comes about with the premise that competition is good, ergo schools should be competitive.  This will give us better students, right?  Wrong.  That's because by the time the clients (the students) are in a position to reflect on whether or not they had a good education, it's already over.




Not true.  It's readily apparent on a classroom level to anyone who cares to pay attention whether or not the kids are being well educated.  This may be more difficult in earlier years, but certainly by the time you're reaching 10 year olds this is not hard to figure out.  Making sure the system supports a free market is the most paramount goal.  Parents will send their kids to the schools which do the best.  It's that simple.



> I automatically distrust any system that leaves children wide open for exploitation.  If each child comes with a fat voucher check, that school is going to be interested in keeping as much of that check as possible.  That means less qualified teachers who are paid less, poorer quality buildings, outdated curriculum (since new curriculum costs $) and so on.  Children find it hard to advocate for themselves in such a situation.  We would like to believe that parents would not subject their kids to such a school, but that simply is not the case.  They might not have a choice, if the only school in town that doesn't require extra money is that way.  Can't parents complain?  Sure, but when you're the bottom rung on the ladder there is no place else to go.




This happens in public schools.  I don't see how vouchers would change anything, except offer the parents an alternative to a compulsory school system that is already cutting those costs.



> You can see why the wealthy like vouchers.  By supplementing their voucher, they can send their student to a quality school that is likely to give in to their input, while poorer parents have to send their kids to lower quality schools.  In one bold stroke, the wealthy get their private school AND more say in the school (they have a lot to say now in public schools, I HATE affluent parents) AND seperation of class.  Wow.




Then the voucher needs to be 100%.  If the taxes pay $10,000 for education per year, then the voucher should be $10,000.  The problem you bring up isn't one with vouchers, it's a problem with any system that is done half-assed.



> Vouchers are based on the capitalist presumption that competition is good.  However, this is based on greed.  Reducing students to dollar amounts can only be bad and undoes over a 100 years worth of work.




Work?  The system currently in place was based on that created by an East European (I do not recall the country at the moment) semi-totalitarian regime to keep their citizens in control.  It was brought over by industry giants like Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford to create a population of non-independent thinkers molded for factory work.  Read up.  Gatto is a good place to start.  Also, if you can hunt them down, try to check out some of post WWII US military research studies on why the average American citizen was no longer competent enough to be in the military.  They had to spend billions on re-education of soldiers.  Many analysts laid the blame on this new generation of Americans coming out of the public education system.



> I think it's a seriously bad move and would rather talk about improving public schools than waste more time on an idea voters hate anyway.




Public schools can't be improved in any significant way.  The base assumptions and designs are the problem, not the implementation.  It needs to be redone from the ground up.  Voting for anything other than complete reform is a waste of time.



> Remember the two reasons for public schools is to 1.) produce better educated citizens for a better democracy.  This is hard to do if we have a variety of private schools producing students of differing quality.




As I stated above, you are absolutely incorrect on this assumption.  Try to go find out the real history of public education.  Don't allow big industry (supported by governments funded by such) to put thoughts in your head.



> 2.) To keep kids from being exploited.  The reason for mandatory school attendance was to get kids out of factories.  Vouchers put kids right back in that exploitation category.




Incorrect again.  The system is designed to exploit the American citizens to their fullest.  Mandatory attendence was put into place by those who saw the potential for creating the Nuclear family that would sustain American industry.


----------



## reanjr (Feb 17, 2005)

Devilkiller said:
			
		

> I have always heard complaints about the low pay of teachers, but I have never had a clear picture of just how much money it is that teachers make. Without that it is tough to tell whether or not their pay is "fair". Some folks would consider $40,000 chump change and insufficient to pay the bills. Others would consider it a "pretty good job". The same could be said of $30,000 or $70,000. Give us some numbers here? I can't see paying somebody $150,000/yr to teach 4 year olds to spell C-A-T, but if there are guys teaching Calculus to 17 year olds for $6/hour that's probably silly too.




Yeah, also keep in mind the vacation package is absolutely superb.  If a teacher gets paid $30k/yr. they are making about as much per hour as your average $40k worker.  The only companies I've seen that even come close to comparing are the big three and their associated companies.  The UAW (at least the ones I am involved with at work) now get paid vacation for the first day of deer hunting season...

Though I do believe teachers should get paid more.  I think it should be turned into a performance based industry with wildly varying salaries based on effectiveness and subject (I don't care how you slice it, your Chemistry teacher should get paid more than your Intro to Earth Sciences teacher; unless they redesigned the curriculum for Earth Sciences).  Having a union for teachers is just weird in my opinion.


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## reanjr (Feb 17, 2005)

d20fool said:
			
		

> B.) Most parents are more than willing to pay more taxes for education.  They are our voting base in our local bond issues.  It's folks without kids in school who don't like to pay teachers.




Not in my experience, and for good reason.  Throwing more money at the problem is a case of diminishing returns.  Taxes need to be better appropriated, not increased.

Think of the following scenario:

We abolish almost all taxes related to education and semi-privatize the entire system (the only economic control is that schools support an income-progressive system).  A very low-level core curiculum is mandated covering only the basics of what are absolutely necessary skills in life (arithmetic, reading, writing [but not creatively or analytically], scientific method, and possibly some life skills).  Anything else is up to the individual school and/or parent.  Public state schools are set up with the remaining drastically reduced budget to teach only the core curriculum, and to supply learning materials (books, computers, internet, whatever...) for independent study.

Now you think that those (economically) poor parents are all about putting more money into a public education system that consistently produces high school graduates who can not read above 4th grade level?  I don't think so.

From my discussions with parents, the combination of the following two conclusions would be the majority, especially among the poor who higher taxes hurt the most:

1. I can save a lot of money by keeping my child home and schooling her myself.

2. I want what's best for my child, but let's be realistic; he's gonna end up working in a factory anyway, just like his mom and I, and his grandfather, and so on.  The state run school will be good enough.  If my son is smart, then he can independently study anything else he wants while he's there and really make something of himself.  Meanwhile, I can save some money to better provide for my family those things that are ACTUALLY necessary, and maybe even save up a bit for my son's college, which I would never be able to afford if I sent him to a non-state school, no matter how good he does in school.

(by the way, I don't want to take credit for this idea; I am merely espousing the ideas a local politician had in the last election)



> C.) Back in Colorado, there is an entire class of teachers who quit after several years becaus e they simply could not afford to teach and had to get a better paying job.  Insurance companies advertise in my teacher union magazine for exactly that reason, to recruit people.




I'm a bit incredulous.  People teach because they want to teach, not to earn money.  Unless you are telling me they absolutely could not afford food and shelter, then they probably weren't the kinds of teachers I'd want teaching my children anyway.  As I said before, this doesn't mean I disagree with increasing teacher salaries, but I have never heard of a public school teacher who actually could not afford to teach (I know I had several teachers that commuted over an hour each way to work because the school was in an area they could not afford).  Were these private school teachers, perchance?  I know I've heard of some of them making $15k/yr.

Most jobs are paid for with money.  Some with prestige.  A few with power.  Teachers (policemen, fireman, etc.) are paid with the opportunity to make a difference.


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## Desdichado (Feb 17, 2005)

Devilkiller said:
			
		

> I have always heard complaints about the low pay of teachers, but I have never had a clear picture of just how much money it is that teachers make. Without that it is tough to tell whether or not their pay is "fair". Some folks would consider $40,000 chump change and insufficient to pay the bills. Others would consider it a "pretty good job". The same could be said of $30,000 or $70,000. Give us some numbers here? I can't see paying somebody $150,000/yr to teach 4 year olds to spell C-A-T, but if there are guys teaching Calculus to 17 year olds for $6/hour that's probably silly too.



It depends on the region.  In the Detroit suburbs, teachers can make upwards of $60-70k.  Otherwise, though, nobody would do it, because they would get a UAW job on the line of Livonia Transmission Plant or somesuch and make that money for less work and stress.  Salaries are inflated across the board in Detroit.


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## Rel (Feb 17, 2005)

d20 fool,

I'm not going to debate the voucher thing with you.  You'll have to take my word that I'm capable of debating it but this isn't the place for it.

Suffice it to say that we have wildly differing views about the idea of dumping additional taxpayer dollars into a system that is (IMO) deeply flawed and underperforming.  I have every interest in my young child (3&1/2) getting a great education in the years ahead and I hold out hope that I'm able to accomplish that within or despite whatever educational system that I'm able to afford.

I wish you luck in your career as a teacher and I hope that you're able to figure out a way to reconcile your desire to teach and your desire for a decent income.

Regards,

Rel


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## GentleGiant (Feb 17, 2005)

reanjr said:
			
		

> There is another problem, though, that our system does well at addressing.  What do you do with all the highly educated people that would come out of a better system?  It's bad enough that people with higher degrees can not work in their respective fields.  If the average high school student came out with Bachelor's level education (which is quite possible, though probably would not be as specialized), the problem of over-education would only get worse.



Although only a tangent off of this, the above reminded me about an interesting fact, which I found when I was researching the possibility of bringing the Danish student aid with me to study in the US.
It turns out that I wouldn't be able to get the student aid for the first year of college in the US. Why? Because our equivalent of a high school diploma here in Denmark (roughly 12th grade) is considered academically on par with finishing the first year of college in the US...

Also, I wanted to comment on the comparison between US and European schools. You can't really compare them. Not because one system is inherently better or worse, but because the systems in place vary from country to country. Sometimes even wildly so.
I've heard that elementary schools in the UK are among the poorest (and have been given some examples, e.g. a definitive lack of basic knowledge in e.g. basic European history), while the Finnish schools are considered to be among the best.
This is based on various tests, like reading and math level etc.


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## Daalbar (Feb 17, 2005)

I have a couple of friends who went the teaching route... both in high school level math and sciences (biology & Calculus) at a school just outside Toronto.

If you ever think your working life is frustrating and beset with barriers to prevent progress, talk to a teacher... you will feel much better about how things are going, and it's cheaper than therapy!

Both women were (are) very bright and went into teaching anticipating a promising long-term career. By the middle of their second years I started to see the fraying.

Yes, they would talk about long hours (grading papers and such into the night, preparation for their classes the next day... all this outside of class stuff meant they were working at least 10 hour days and putting in some time on either Saturday or Sunday -- part of this obviously was due to being new to teaching and putting together lessons from scratch). They would also complain about inattentive and disruptive students and a lack of respect and oftimes, a general lack of support from the administration when trying to deal with these sorts of situations (nothing violent, mind you -- some teachers may have to face this as well), but in general, there were relatively few complaints about the students, other than that running a class was often like trying to herd cats.

What they saved their real venom for was administrative red tape and actual interference with how they conducted their jobs. Pointless meetings that achieved little of use were one thing, but I found one anecdote particularly enlightening...

In her second year, one of my friends was teaching a new Mathematics class (I can't recall what level). She gave the first test of the term, thinking she had designed a fair but challenging test -- a mix of questions of her own devising, some straightforward, some more difficult, but nothing that would have been unfamiliar from the lessons. She was surprised when the class mean for the test was only 42%... but she was more surprised when the Principal approached her and told her he had had complaints and that her test must have been too hard without having bothered to look at it. I guess the logic was that too many kids had failed the test, so it must have been too hard. So for the next test, she went the other way (in part, to try to prove a point). The second test consisted entirely of questions taken directly from the textbook's problem sets... about half of which had actually been questions that had already been assigned as homework. She held two review sessions, during which, as examples of the kinds of problems that would be on the test, she actually included several of the very same questions that would be on the test the following week. The result of all this spoon feeding? An average somewhere around 58%...

However, that wasn't an accross the board improvement. It was simply an effect of one-third of the kids showing a marked jump in their scores. Presumably those were the ones who spent some time actually looking over their notes (who knows if they actually studied). 

Apparently that wasn't good enough for the Principal, despite her evidence he still accused her of making tests that were too difficult.

In later years, they both started counting down the days to summer break even moreso than the students. After 4 years, one left to go work at bank for a drop in pay... she was never happier, it was a vast reduction in stress. The other learned to be less idealistic and cut back on her effort and time investment. She is still teaching.

Seems to me this is often the real reason for the type of attrition that is seen among new teachers. They either get hammered down or leave the profession.


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## Rel (Feb 17, 2005)

Daalbar said:
			
		

> Seems to me this is often the real reason for the type of attrition that is seen among new teachers. They either get hammered down or leave the profession.




My experience has been much the same as yours.  I have a sister and at least three friends who were teachers at one point or another.  My sister is now a waitress, one friend went back to school and became a surgeon, one quit and started her own business as an interior decorator, one is still a teacher.  She teaches an elective (High School Art) so I think that contributes to a slightly better overall environment since her students choose to be in the class.

Every one of them has said that the administration is an utter pain in the ass.


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## Thornir Alekeg (Feb 17, 2005)

My wife is a 4th grade public school teacher.  She has a Master's in Elementary Education.  She has not been teaching long as she changed from her science career to teach.  She had always been interested in teaching, but could not reconcile that with the low pay.  After she was laid off from a great paying job that she did not enjoy, we decided to have her go back to school, get her Masters and become a teacher.  It would be a bit of a financial hit, but with my job we would manage.  She earns around $40k.  She cannot earn extra by participating in other activities, other than becoming a mentor for new teachers, which gets you a whopping $600 a year.  

As for whether the pay is too low, just right or too much, consider the following:

A good early education teacher is not just teaching children to spell C-A-T, they are teaching the fundamentals of learning, how to learn, how to think, how to act socially in an appropriate way.  They are often the first line of defense in recognizing a child with a possible learning disability - and early intervention is extremely important in that.  They are responsible for so much.  In higher grades, there is more to teach, but there are other issues to deal with as well.

Hours: Anybody who thinks teachers have it easy since the school day is only 6 hours long on average has no clue.  Those six hours are for teaching.  In addition there is the planning, the grading, and the adminsitrative work that must be done.  My wife * always * brings work home, and many times for the sake of actually being able to spend time together, I assist in grading objective tests such as spelling and math.

Summers off: Yes, teachers get about 2 months off during the summer.  Of course part of that time is usually spent preparing for the next school year, and taking required Continuing Education courses.

So does that all equal the pay they get?  For the importance of the job they do, the pressure they have to deal with and the amount of work they actually do, I would say no.  Unfortunately, like police officers, firemen, military personnel and many other public servants, they do not "earn" money for a business who can turn it back on their employees, they are at the mercy of the public tax system, and let's face it, nobody you ask is going to jump up and down and volunteer to pay more taxes.

With all that I would agree that just "throwing more money" at the schools is not the ultimate solution to the education issues in the US.  Smarter use of the funds available is also needed.  Throw more money at a wasteful school and all you'll get is more waste.  Figure out how to make the system work best and how much money is needed realsitically to make it happen - it will be more that is the current average in the majority of schools.


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## DaveStebbins (Feb 18, 2005)

*Teacher Pay*

Two data points.

My (now ex-) wife had a master's degree as a teacher of the deaf and hearing impaired and several years experience. She was working at a school for the deaf. I was an engineering student about to graduate college with zero real-world engineering experience. My first job offer before graduation was almost double her salary.

So we moved to where my new job was. After working for near-minimum wage in child care for a year, she got a job as a first grade teacher in a private school. A couple of years later we had our daughter. When looking at child care options, we did the math. She would have had to pay over 70% of her take-home pay just to cover the cost of child care.

Teachers who stick with it and don't burn out can eventually make good money late in their careers, but the attrition rate is high. And, with a professional degree, they can always, ALWAYS, make better money working in a corporate environment. Heck, just off the top of my head I can think of two former teachers in the semi-small circle of people I know at work.

-Dave


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## drothgery (Feb 18, 2005)

DaveStebbins said:
			
		

> Teachers who stick with it and don't burn out can eventually make good money late in their careers, but the attrition rate is high. And, with a professional degree, they can always, ALWAYS, make better money working in a corporate environment.




That's not really a valid comparison, though. Teachers have, for the most part (and yes, I'm generalizing here), a humanities undergraduate degree and teaching certification (in most states) or a Masters in Education (in states that require it, like New York). Almost no one gets money just of undergrad that's comprable to what engineers and computer scientists can often get. A hard science undergrad degree qualifies you for a low-paying lab tech job, or possibly teaching high school (well, physics and math majors can get snapped up for programming work when there aren't enough CS majors available). And a humanities or social science undergrad degree isn't a prerequisite for anything except grad school.


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## Impeesa (Feb 18, 2005)

I think we (and by 'we' I mean "Canada, which is close enough") aren't too behind yet, but we'll see more and more slippage in the future. The school system just isn't set up right, and it's apparently gotten worse since I was in it - and I could tell it was messed up when I was in it, right from day one.

An entertaining aside: I got suspended on my very first day of kindergarten. The teacher had us all sitting around the edge of the rug. "Stand up," she said, and we all stood up. "Sit down," she said, and down we all went. This repeated a couple times. "Stand up." She looks at me. "Why aren't you standing up?" Little me shoots back: "Because you're just going to make me sit down again." You know that Simpsons episode where the teacher is pushing the "Independant Thought Alarm" button under the desk? When I look back, I imagine something like that taking place shortly afterwards. She told my parents I could come back when I was ready to behave. 

Anyways... I'm just going to throw some tangentially related observations out, here. Take them as you will.

The bar has been lowered for school performance. Not only has it been lowered such that anyone can meet it, it's been lowered so far that those who were previously capable of meeting it are tripping over it. 

The system seems almost deliberately designed to destroy the minds of the most capable students, bringing them down to the lowest level present. I was very nearly a lost cause in grade 6. I have a pair of siblings who were headed down the same path. Our mother decided to homeschool them this year (their grade 7 year) because she was so thoroughly dissatisfied with the system.

More fun stories from grade 6: Our science textbooks were 20+ years old. I don't recall the specifics, but it was old enough that it shorted either Saturn or Jupiter by about 10 moons. I recognized that just reading through it, and let me tell you, that inspired a world of confidence in the education I was receiving. That, and the fact that I got away with doing a single question on each math assignment and 'marking' it myself for about 6 months. 

Not too long ago, I had the pleasure of working at a summer science camp. It was aimed at teenagers, with the mandate of steering more students towards post-secondary sciences. It was created and partially run by a chemistry professor who is active in promoting the sciences to younger kids. He's also our provincial NDP candidate (left-wing socialists, for our foreign friends), and he has his eye on the position of Minister of Education specifically because he, like many others, thinks the school system needs drastic reform.

Another fun fact: I don't recall the specifics (see a pattern here?), but I learned somewhere during my experience with the science camp that most kids (especially girls) have decided they're 'not smart enough' for science before they even make it to high school. 

Why?

Going back to the lowering of the bar, I think we've created an educational system where kids are taught that it's okay not to think too hard. I've touched on this before  in this thread, so I won't elaborate too much here. 

Suffice it to say that I've thought myself in circles - the dumbing down of the system serves a dual purpose - to promote the incapable past their capabilities without challenging them to improve, and to quash those with the greatest potential. The end result is a vast shortage of motivated, inquisitive, and generally knowledgeable individuals - exactly the people who drive scientific advancement. 

QED, or something like that.

--Impeesa--


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## Thunhus (Feb 18, 2005)

Morrus said:
			
		

> _What?!? _ Where on earth did you hear that?
> 
> I mean, this conversation is in context of the Western world, right?  Poor Eastern European countries are really no more relevant to the conversation than poor African countries are.  I know of no Western country which starts teaching kids to read at _seven_.




We start school at seven year old here in Finland. Despite it we have quite a good results.

Thunhus


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## d20fool (Feb 21, 2005)

*The money really does suck*



			
				Devilkiller said:
			
		

> d20fool,
> 
> What grade/subject(s) do you teach? What is your yearly salary for the regular September-June or so school year? Also, do or could you make extra money from the school or school district for coaching sports, teaching summer school, etc? If so how much does or could that pay add up to? Finally, is your income close to the national average for teachers with your job description?
> 
> I have always heard complaints about the low pay of teachers, but I have never had a clear picture of just how much money it is that teachers make. Without that it is tough to tell whether or not their pay is "fair". Some folks would consider $40,000 chump change and insufficient to pay the bills. Others would consider it a "pretty good job". The same could be said of $30,000 or $70,000. Give us some numbers here? I can't see paying somebody $150,000/yr to teach 4 year olds to spell C-A-T, but if there are guys teaching Calculus to 17 year olds for $6/hour that's probably silly too.




You'll forgive me if I don't lay out all my finances online, but here's a run down.  I am a educated professional with a Master's degree and a BA in English from CU-Denver, an accredited and academically rigorous school.  If I were in any other profession, I should expect a base pay of $50K for my first year out of school, earning possibly up to $80K (or far more) by the end of my career.  This is what you will find for engineers and lawyers, you have a comparable amount of education and ceritification as we do.

When I started, I got less than $27K a year.  After five years, I've just barely gotten over $30K a year.  I supplement with $2K from summer school each year, a job that is not reliable as budget cuts threaten it every year.  I also get $500 to coach Science Olympiad, which takes over 100 hours a year, so that's under $5 an hour for a guy with two degrees to coach that.

My wife and I together have a modest mortgage, two reasonable car payments, a reasonable credit card debt.  After paying debts and bills, we rarely have over $400 to buy groceries, gas, and other necessities.  Often this number is lower.  Despite careful budgeting, we frequently have to borrow to get by.  I currently have a payday loan.  I don't want to sound snobbish here, but I didn't bust my @$$ in grad school so I could take payday  loans to buy milk and peanut butter.  

Further, I have considerable student loans, as does my wife.  OUR LOANS HAVE BEEN IN DEFERMENT THE ENTIRE TIME WE HAVE BEEN TEACHING.  We simply cannot even begin to dream of paying them.  Meanwhile, they get bigger and bigger due to interest.  I have no college savings for my children, no savings whatsoever, no investments, and barely any equity in my house.  

My friend Dom, with one degree, works in computers.  He makes over twice what I do.  The guy who runs the local Sonic makes over three times what I do.  Locals with nothing more than a high school degree commonly make more than I do.    

Do I live in abject poverty? No.  If someone asked me about teaching, would I tell them what "bad pay" really means? Yes, they deserve to know.  Not very encouraging to someone who wants to join our profession.  

I hope this clears the picture up somewhat.  I can't speak nationally, but we a considered one of the better paying districts locally.  I tremble for the poor teacher in Sedalia, who are paid far lower than we are.  I do know that some East Coast districts pay considerably better, but are in parts of the nation where cost of living is much higher as well.

John "d20fool" McCarty


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## d20fool (Feb 21, 2005)

*Them's Fightin' Words*



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> Not in my experience, and for good reason.  Throwing more money at the problem is a case of diminishing returns.  Taxes need to be better appropriated, not increased.




Money to pay a teacher is never wasted.



			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> Think of the following scenario:




I'd rather not.  What a ludicrous idea espoused by a guy who may have visited a school or two but has NO idea of what we do there.  Socialization and character education, for starters, are not even listed but are arguably the most important thing we do.  Because of public school, my two autistic students have a chance at living as productive members of society and my wife's at-risk program has turned around several students that were heading for jail.  Neither type of student would be served under your nightmare of a scenario.  Your politician clearly has no idea of what schools accomplish for society.





			
				reanjr said:
			
		

> I'm a bit incredulous.  People teach because they want to teach, not to earn money.  Unless you are telling me they absolutely could not afford food and shelter, then they probably weren't the kinds of teachers I'd want teaching my children anyway.  As I said before, this doesn't mean I disagree with increasing teacher salaries, but I have never heard of a public school teacher who actually could not afford to teach (I know I had several teachers that commuted over an hour each way to work because the school was in an area they could not afford).  Were these private school teachers, perchance?  I know I've heard of some of them making $15k/yr.
> 
> Most jobs are paid for with money.  Some with prestige.  A few with power.  Teachers (policemen, fireman, etc.) are paid with the opportunity to make a difference.





I hate this "low pay means dedicated teachers" argument with a passion.  It's a circular argument that takes advantage of teachers' best quality, dedication.  Here's the argument you just stated:

Because teachers have low pay, they are dedicated
Dedicated teachers are  desirable
Therefore, let us continue to pay teachers little so they will all be dedicated.

I want you listen up.  I am a college educated professional with two degrees who works long and hard.  I have a RIGHT to expect to be paid for my skills and my time.  I do not do this for the money, no teacher does it for the money.  If you don't want to be in a room teaching 25 ill-mannered children where you cannot even leave to go to the bathroom, no amount of money will keep you there.

What a ludicrous argument.  Under this logic, all sorts of professions should be underpaid.  Let's see how that works out. . . 

[Doctors]
I'm a bit incredulous.  People practice medicine because they want to practice medicine, not to earn money.  Unless you are telling me they absolutely could not afford food and shelter, then they probably weren't the kinds of doctors I'd want performing surgery on my children anyway.

[Lawyers]
I'm a bit incredulous.  People practice law because they want to practice law, not to earn money.  Unless you are telling me they absolutely could not afford food and shelter, then they probably weren't the kinds of lawyers I'd want defending me when I am falsely accused anyway.

[Engineers]
I'm a bit incredulous.  People become engineers because they want to build structures, not to earn money.  Unless you are telling me they absolutely could not afford food and shelter, then they probably weren't the kinds of engineers I'd want building the things over my head anyway.

I am dedicated because I have a passion for what I am doing.  You haven't heard of anybody who couldn't afford to teach?!  Well, now you have.  I have applied at the local college to become a principal.  I love teaching, I love my job and I'm good at it.  However, I cannot afford it anymore.  Sadly, ironically, I can't afford the $30 application fee until next paycheck in three weeks either!  That's how ridiculous my situation is.

So let's not question my dedication or imply that teachers are so mercenary that they have to be paid nothing to ensure their loyalty and devotion to other people's children.  I have a right to a decent wage, my children have a right to be provided for.  Might I suggest you not be quite so flippent when you discuss teacher's committment in the future.

John "Mad as Nine Layers of Hell" McCarty


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## drothgery (Feb 21, 2005)

d20fool said:
			
		

> You'll forgive me if I don't lay out all my finances online, but here's a run down.  I am a educated professional with a Master's degree and a BA in English from CU-Denver, an accredited and academically rigorous school.  If I were in any other profession, I should expect a base pay of $50K for my first year out of school, earning possibly up to $80K (or far more) by the end of my career.  This is what you will find for engineers and lawyers, you have a comparable amount of education and ceritification as we do.




You're making a very poor assumption, in asserting that engineers, lawyers, and computer scientists are "any other profession". They're not.

Engineering and computer science are the outlier fields, where a BS can lead to a relatively high-paying job directly related to what you studied just out of school (it doesn't always; my first job out of school -- with a BS in CS in-hand -- paid little more than yours did, though I've since moved on to positions that pay quite a bit better). It's very dubious as to whether getting a Master's in CS and some engineering fields is worth it; the two years of income and experience that you lose out on by getting an MS are almost certainly worth more. And law school is just about the only place where a humanities or social science undergrad degree and one graduate degree can lead directly to a high-paying job.

In any other profession, it takes exceptional skill, networking, and/or seniority (particularly in a unionized goverment job, the latter tends to outweigh everything else) to reach upper-middle class income levels in a short period of time.


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## d20fool (Feb 21, 2005)

*No really, it's less*



			
				drothgery said:
			
		

> You're making a very poor assumption, in asserting that engineers, lawyers, and computer scientists are "any other profession". They're not.
> 
> (snip)
> 
> In any other profession, it takes exceptional skill, networking, and/or seniority (particularly in a unionized goverment job, the latter tends to outweigh everything else) to reach upper-middle class income levels in a short period of time.




Oh please, "those guys are always paid more."  I am a skilled professional.  When does my hard work pay off?

My male counterparts get paid 60% better than I do
http://www.nea.org/edstats/losingground.html

I am paid less by hour and by week than my peers with similar skill sets.  (I would add that, with the possible exception of clergy, I have more responsibility.  These other guys get to go to the potty whenever they want.)
http://www.nea.org/neatoday/0410/teachercomp.html

John "d20fool" McCarty


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## Umbran (Feb 21, 2005)

d20fool said:
			
		

> A.) Are you suggesting we pay parents to be good parents?




The original thesis was not, "The thing over which we have control that most impacts classroom performance is X."  Nor was any mention of money made in the thesis.  So I dunno where you get the idea that I'm suggesting pay for parents.

If there were a good way to do it, though, it might not be a bad idea.  I doubt a good way exists, though.



> We have NO control over the parents.  We get the kids that we get.  Yes, good parents are important, but not consistant.




Yes, but the point is that perhaps we ought to find some ways to improve the parenting.  We don't have control, but maybe we can have influence.



> Teacher quality is something we can control, and studies show that a single, quality teacher has more impact than anything else.




Of the things over which we currently have direct control, perhaps.  Certainly, a good teacher is more valuable than a new book, or a improved building, sure.  But among things that we don't control with school budgets?  My own teaching experience leads me to severely doubt that teachers are still the big thing.  Parents and the culture in which the student lives probably have larger impact.

As you yourself say, teachers have to work with what we are given as students.  And if we are given students who have no interset in learning, we cannot do much.  Inspiring teacher movies make nice cinema, but they don't reflect reality well at all.

I also wonder about the idea that we have real control over teacher quality.  We certainly don't have a direct objective measure of it.  The only real indirwect measure we have is student performance.  And we've yet to come upon a good, solid, objective way to measure that, either.  Without a measure, how can we claim to have reliable control?

The fact of the matter is that since students are those wonderfully complex critters called human beings, teaching is an art, not a science.  Measures of art are by necessity subjective.  And that makes controling the quality difficult, if not impossible. 



> B.) Most parents are more than willing to pay more taxes for education.  They are our voting base in our local bond issues.  It's folks without kids in school who don't like to pay teachers.




If things were that simple, there'd be no funding shortage.

In the end, willingness is irrelevant, because the parents alone don't have enough money to support the school system.  Even if they were willing they are unable, because they're already paying the expenses of living and raising children.  And many aren't even willing, because they don't value educaton highly.



> The upcoming wholesale retirement of teachers has been happening for the last 5 years or so.  I'm actually hoping for a teacher shortage.  Maybe somebody will pay us then.  We have a great retirement plan too, but I'm not quitting until they tell me to go home.




In Massachusetts, the retiring folks have already been in the system for 30 years, and they can retire at 80% of their highest salary.  Work for 100%, or retire from a hard job at 80%?  No brainer there.  Many of them are going home of their own volition.  Especially when they can then go get another job they enjoy to supplement their income.

In MA, the pay isn't as bad as in many places, but the retirement plan has been a disincentive to new teachers.  It was set up by teachers who were already in the system for a decade, and they're making out like bandits.  But studies show that new teachers could do better for themselves using very modest investment strategies rather than entering the MA teachers retirement plan.

I'm hoping the mass-retirement of teachers in MA will change that.  I'm also hoping it means higher pay for teachers.  In the shorter term, I'm just hoping it gets me a job


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## francisca (Feb 21, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Yes, but the point is that perhaps we ought to find some ways to improve the parenting.  We don't have control, but maybe we can have influence.



Anybody who figures out how to do that deserves a Nobel Prize.


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## Frostmarrow (Feb 21, 2005)

Morrus said:
			
		

> _What?!? _ Where on earth did you hear that?
> 
> I mean, this conversation is in context of the Western world, right?  Poor Eastern European countries are really no more relevant to the conversation than poor African countries are.  I know of no Western country which starts teaching kids to read at _seven_.




In Sweden you start learning how to read at 7. Sweden still has 99% literacy (according to the CIA). I don't think the age you begin learning how to read is all that important. We start learning English at 10.


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## Umbran (Feb 21, 2005)

francisca said:
			
		

> Anybody who figures out how to do that deserves a Nobel Prize.




I dunno.  The issue isn't as difficult as all that.  After all, don't Madison Avenue advertising executives already make big bucks for being demonstratably good at influencing public opinion?  Don't politicos have spin doctors for the same ends?  If you can change public opinion about a soda, or a pair of jeans, or a policial candidate, why should it be amazing to do so about something that really matters, like education?


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## drothgery (Feb 21, 2005)

d20fool said:
			
		

> Oh please, "those guys are always paid more."  I am a skilled professional.  When does my hard work pay off?




It doesn't, at least not in cash. You chose to work in a highly unionized government job which demands a lot of employees and has a very flat org chart. If you didn't know the implications of this going in, you should have.

Because teaching is highly unionized AND a goverment job, it's very difficult for an outstanding teacher to be paid more than his or her peers (and it's very difficult to fire a poor one). Because teaching is a government job and society requires a lot of them, average teacher salaries are going to be the minimum level that produces a sufficient number of teachers; any other approach would bankrupt state governments fairly quickly (most states already spend a very large portion of their budget on education). Because there's a very flat org chart in teaching, you can't easily get promoted to a higher-paying position.


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## Alan Shutko (Feb 21, 2005)

d20fool said:
			
		

> I hate this "low pay means dedicated teachers" argument with a passion.  It's a circular argument that takes advantage of teachers' best quality, dedication.




Unfortunately, you support the argument every day you teach.  You are paid poorly yet continue to teach.  Either you're dedicated to your job, or you can't find any other job.  Either way, there's no economic incentive to pay you more.

Sadly, the most effective way to increase teacher salaries would be for all the dedicated teachers to quit and find other jobs.


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## Umbran (Feb 21, 2005)

d20fool said:
			
		

> I have a right to a decent wage, my children have a right to be provided for.




Well, technically, no.  It would be nice if the world was more fair, and that folks earned salaries commeasureate with how much they aid society.  But the inalienable right is to pursuit of happiness, not the actual happiness itself.  Sorry, but it is possible to make choices that end you up in bad places.



			
				drothgery said:
			
		

> Because teaching is a government job and society requires a lot of them, average teacher salaries are going to be the minimum level that produces a sufficient number of teachers




That's both theoretical, and oversimplified.  We live instead in the practical and complex world.

In the real world, "sufficient number of teachers" is not a simple given.  The number of teachers you need varies depending upon their quality, and upon what educational goals you set.  You can try to meet a given goal with a large number of lesser teachers, or a smaller number of exemplary teachers, and so on.  And, it isn't as if anyone really knows what number is sufficient until after the process is done.  Administrators have to guess at how many people they need, and even an educated guess can be incorrect.

The idea that the system will, as a certainty, provide enough funds is purely theoretical.  It depends upon the populace being enlightened and well-informed about the facts, and that no other agendas or market forces interfere.  But in the real world, the populace doesn't grasp the economic theory, is poorly informed, and tend to be short-sighted.  Economic realities can prevent even a willing populace from being able to pay monies sufficient to cover any particular educational goal.


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## Umbran (Feb 21, 2005)

Alan Shutko said:
			
		

> Either way, there's no economic incentive to pay you more.




Oh, there is an economic incentive to pay more, but it requires a rather broad and long-sighted frame of mind to see it.  In short - higher pay means better teaching, better teaching means better educated students.  That means more wealth for your community and natnion in the long run.    

For a given level of dedication, a teacher who is paid well will in general do a better job than a teacher who is paid poorly.  Higher pay generally means reduced stress, and that means less burnout.  And that's important, because burned out teachers frequently don't leave the system.  They generally stay in their burned out state, doing a lousy job.

And better pay would free up more of a dedicated teacher's summer time to make themselves better teachers, either through R&R or continuing education or planning.  The guy who needs to spend his summer selling hot-dogs to make ends meet will not do as good a job as the guy who can take classes or design innovative lesson plans in the summer instead.


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## drothgery (Feb 21, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> In the real world, "sufficient number of teachers" is not a simple given.  The number of teachers you need varies depending upon their quality, and upon what educational goals you set.  You can try to meet a given goal with a large number of lesser teachers, or a smaller number of exemplary teachers, and so on.  And, it isn't as if anyone really knows what number is sufficient until after the process is done.  Administrators have to guess at how many people they need, and even an educated guess can be incorrect.




Okay, more accurately, governments are going to try to minimize costs, and though they rarely succeed and often make very poor decisions in pursuit of minimizing costs, that's what they're aiming for. And they have to; K-12 education is the single biggest component of most state and local budgets. Many states have mandates on the maximum number of students per teacher, so districts can't use fewer, better-paid teachers with larger classes even if they wanted to.


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## Umbran (Feb 21, 2005)

drothgery said:
			
		

> Okay, more accurately, governments are going to try to minimize costs, and though they rarely succeed and often make very poor decisions in pursuit of minimizing costs, that's what they're aiming for. And they have to;




It is, in part, a good elected official's job to keep your tax burden as low as possible.  On the other hand, it is also his duty to help provide proper public services.  Those two goals are in conflict, and no one clearly takes precedence over the other all the time.  Thus, there's no "have to".  Sometimes it makes sense to keep education spending down.  Sometimes it does not.  

I submit that when you cease being able to keep your education standards up, it is illogical to hold education spending down.  If you think education is expensive, you should think about the costs of ignorance.



> Many states have mandates on the maximum number of students per teacher, so districts can't use fewer, better-paid teachers with larger classes even if they wanted to.




I'm in no way a booster for large class sizes, but mandates are not set in stone, never to be altered.  Every single legal document we have is subject to change, right on up to the Constitution.  Economic reality may limit teacher salary or govern class sizes, but legal mandate is not a barrier in the long term.


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