The Real Victims

Modestly rich people stung by tuition increases at private schools:

The economy also is playing a role [in declining private school enrollment]. School officials say more parents are complaining about the price of a private school education, and more are seeking financial aid at a time when the cost of kindergarten -- $26,790 at Sidwell Friends School in the District, for example -- can be higher than the yearly $20,805 out-of-state tuition at the University of Maryland at College Park.

Or as the head of the national association said: Tuition may have reached the "breaking point."

Of course this does raise the point that there's something odd about the conventional cost structure of American education. We generally spend more money on kids the older they get (i.e., more on college than on high school, more on high school than on elementary school, more on elementary school than on early education) but all the evidence suggests that the stuff that comes earlier is more important than the stuff that comes later. I suppose you see this most clearly with foreign languages where if we took all the people doing foreign language instruction for people aged 15-22 and had them work on kids aged 4-11 instead we'd get more results.

Comments

I suppose you see this most clearly with foreign languages where if we took all the people doing foreign language instruction for people aged 15-22 and had them work on kids aged 4-11 instead we'd get more results.

This is an issue specific to foreign languages. It has been mapped to an issue with brain formation.

It is not true of all disciplines. Abstraction, such as needed in higher mathematics, tends to come later.

Posted by Walker | March 5, 2008 2:24 PM

One reason for this is financial aid programs that have been raising rates on the top income bracket to be able to better fund the lower income segment of their student body. The second reason for this is simply that Fairfax and Montgomery Counties have really amazing magnet schools that reduce the rationale for private schools in the area beyond snob-appeal.

Posted by Robert | March 5, 2008 2:31 PM

True, but should they learn Spanish for the more immediate foreign occupation of the country or Chinese for the overrunning to occur farther down the road?

Posted by steve duncan | March 5, 2008 2:32 PM

Assuming much of the cost disparity between running a preschool and running a university relates to instructor wages, I would think the higher wage structure for higher education is rather easily explainable at least in part as a function of the more specialized knowledge necessary to teach.

My dim memories of high school spanish plus a couple weeks in a refresher course would probably be enough to allow me to be a competent spanish teacher for kindergardeners. Not so much university students.

Posted by dan | March 5, 2008 2:44 PM

Wait, didn't MY just present for our consideration the example of Finland, where kids don't even start school until age 7? Also teaching kids foreign languages from age 4-11 is a great idea, but you still need to keep it up for ages 12-18 or the kids will simply forget everything they've learned. Even a kid who speaks a foreign language fluently at age 7 can forget that language entirely by adulthood if they live in an English dominant environment - as is the case with many immmigrant children.

Posted by vanya | March 5, 2008 2:51 PM

"The second reason for this is simply that Fairfax and Montgomery Counties have really amazing magnet schools that reduce the rationale for private schools in the area beyond snob-appeal."

Never underestimate the power of snob appeal in Fairfax and Montgomery Counties. I've met people who have nearly driven themselves into bankruptcy, spending tens of thousands of dollars per year to avoid subjecting their children to the dismal proletarian squalor of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School.

Matt's at least partially correct, though. Most young children aren't prepared to handle abstract mathematical logic and advanced scientific concepts. But you can't teach those concepts to children until they have the proper grounding in language and arithmetic. Children who start their secondary education several years behind the curve tend to stay several years behind the curve.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | March 5, 2008 2:56 PM

but all the evidence suggests that the stuff that comes earlier is more important than the stuff that comes later.

Uh, I think foreign languages are the exception. Studying University chemistry under a master chemist is going to have more impact on a future chemical engineering career than studying elementary school cursive under a master calligrapher will have on, well, any career.

Posted by Shinyk | March 5, 2008 2:59 PM

Robert,

90% of the kids who apply to Thomas Jefferson do not get in. They are stuck back in their local school unless they get a boundary exception to attend an IB school.

elite private schools are a way for rich whites to network with each other while avoiding the work it takes to keep up with the hard working Asian students.

Posted by superdestroyer | March 5, 2008 3:06 PM

elite private schools are a way for rich whites to network with each other while avoiding the work it takes to keep up with the hard working Asian students.

My experience with private school is that it was full of hard working Asian students that we caucasoids had to compete with.

Posted by Tyro | March 5, 2008 3:24 PM

I wonder which school the Obama children should go to if their dad wins the general election?

Posted by h | March 5, 2008 3:25 PM

"...but all the evidence suggests that the stuff that comes earlier is more important than the stuff that comes later."

I would add, I think the quality of instruction also declines when you start paying for it. I don't think any professor ever taught me anything. They tell you what to learn, and then check to see if you've learned it, but they never bother teaching. They are very well equipped for determining if you have learned what they told you to learn, but they seem to have neither the inclination nor ability to actually teach.

Posted by Njorl | March 5, 2008 3:27 PM

Matt - Does it make you feel any better that preshool in NYC cost upwards of $18-$20,000. Sometimes that just covers three days a week on an academic calendar. Enough of an early investment?

Posted by Merle | March 5, 2008 3:28 PM

The Supreme Court has taken care of all of this. With the new ruling re racial preferences/"quotas," i.e., to quote Justice Roberts, "how can we eliminate discrimination if we continue to discriminate," you will see a drift back to elite public schools in the wealthier parts of cities. For example, on the Westside of Los Angeles, one could be paying $30K in property taxes and $25K in private school tuition. If those families now going to private school give $10k each to the local public school, they are net ahead and can create the same environment they have at the private school. This really adds up for families with 3 or 4 kids. The elite private schools will stay elite. It is the newer or midlevel schools that will face the biggest problems staying open.

Posted by Cal | March 5, 2008 3:38 PM

Doesn't it have something to do with the potential earning power of the people actually paying for education? IE, it's easier to pay for an expensive college mid-way through your career making 120K a year than it is to pay for an expensive preschool when you're 28 and making 50K a year.

I would also attribute rising tuition costs more to income inequality than anything else. Tuition doesn't rise higher than a price that can actually be paid out of pocket and up front by some rich people, because they can differentiate the price for everyone else through scholarships and financial aid. As rich people get richer, they can charge higher prices, because a cohort of rich folks will still be able to pay that price. While this is fine for rich people, when they take away the options that make price differentials actually work for the rest of us, everyone else who's not rich and yet wants to attend college gets screwed.

There's gotta be graphs of that somewhere, so I don't look like an idiot. I'm at work though and can't find any.

Posted by alli | March 5, 2008 3:52 PM

MY,

I think the reason that educaton costs more as students get older is twofold.

First, the requirements for class get more expensive. The textbooks children have in elementary school are going to be cheaper than high school books, if only because of the increased size. Also, the other materials used are more expensive. A computer appropriate for high school student needs to be much more modern and powerful than one which will help younger children. A chemistry class in university is much more expensive per pupil than one in high school.

Second, the various after school and enrichment activities that aren't applicable to young children. An excellent high school music program means the school needs to have a number of near professional quality instruments. And of course, there are the sports teams, which don't exist at lower grade levels.

Posted by jon | March 5, 2008 4:08 PM

There's a solution to this terrible dilemma. There are actually FREE grade schools out there. Yes, I know it seems far-fetched, but they're called PUBLIC SCHOOLS and people should really look into them.

Posted by jlr29 | March 5, 2008 4:15 PM

I think it's simply a case of how much training is needed for educators at each level.

Kindergarten teachers just need to know the alphabet, colors, shapes, and addition/subtraction. That's basically the curriculum they're teaching, no? High school teachers need to have a working knowledge of calculus, physics, Shakespeare, etc. Naturally there's a wage premium attached to that.

Simple economics, kiddies.

Posted by Jeff | March 5, 2008 4:25 PM

"I think it's simply a case of how much training is needed for educators at each level.
Kindergarten teachers just need to know the alphabet, colors, shapes, and addition/subtraction. That's basically the curriculum they're teaching, no? High school teachers need to have a working knowledge of calculus, physics, Shakespeare, etc. Naturally there's a wage premium attached to that.
Simple economics, kiddies."

Simple, yes. Right, no. You vastly underestimate the knowledge, skill, and experience it takes to teach kindergarten. I suggest you give it a try. You know your alphabet, right? I think the reason that elementary school teachers get paid less is 1. there is a huge lack of understanding of what it takes to teach in an elementary school, and 2. it has always been seen as womans work. Woman and children have never been valued in this country. What Matt was saying was that to get the best bang for the buck you put the resources into elentary schools. Kids who don't do well in elementary school, do worse in highschool and never go to college. Elementary school is hwere the basic skills and attitudes are learned. Without these, none of the fancy content stuff if worth anything.

One other thing that goes into the cost equation, especially in preschool: the teacher/student ratios get lower the younger you get. It's 2 to one with infants, 10 to one with preschoolers. Elementary school shoul be no more than 15 to one. But when you get to highchool and college there is no limit. 40 kids in a high school class is very common. 150 in a college class is very common.

I want to emphisis this again and again, most people do not know anything close to what the think they know about education, but that stops no one from commenting, agitating, legislating. This fact is one of the root problems with american education.

Posted by cw | March 5, 2008 4:41 PM

"There are actually FREE grade schools out there."

No, but there ARE "Pay for them whether or not you use them." grade schools. Not quite the same thing...

The fraction of the population in K-12 school renders the level of per pupil expense found in college utterly impractical, even if it would pay dividends in the long run. Which I doubt it would; The expense of higher education appears to be driven by cartelization of the industry, not demand for higher quality at higher expense. Most of that money is NOT being spend on educating the students.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | March 5, 2008 4:43 PM

You vastly underestimate the knowledge, skill, and experience it takes to teach kindergarten. I suggest you give it a try. You know your alphabet, right? I think the reason that elementary school teachers get paid less is 1. there is a huge lack of understanding of what it takes to teach in an elementary school, and 2. it has always been seen as womans work.

Disagree on all counts.

1. The only thing required by kindergarten teachers that wasn't mentioned by the previous poster is patience (though an argument could easily be made that dealing with smartass teenagers requires more). It's harder to find someone with an undergrad in education and a graduate degree in mathematics than it is to find someone who posesses patience and a bachelor's in Early Childhood Education.

2. Most teachers are in unions. Union pay-scales are based on 1) seniority, 2) education level. Sexism can't enter into pay rate for structural reasons (nor can skill level). A ten-year elementary art teacher, with a PhD in, I don't know, fingerpainting makes more than a ten-year high school science teacher with a Masters in Physics. If elementary school teachers make less than high school teachers on average, it's because they have less tendency to acquire graduate degrees or because they don't stick around as long.

Posted by Shinyk | March 5, 2008 5:08 PM

The expense of higher education appears to be driven by cartelization of the industry, not demand for higher quality at higher expense. Most of that money is NOT being spend on educating the students.

Smarter words never spoken.

Posted by Shinyk | March 5, 2008 5:13 PM

True, these parents sending their kids to private school are (assuming they aren't tax evaders) already paying for public school. Yet rather than trying to get a return on that investment, they strain themselves financially so their children can attend an elite private institution. There are certain cases (such as in areas when public schools are very unsafe) where I think parents are justified in doing this, but often the motivation is just giving Billy and Sally the edge on getting into Harvard, or keeping up status appearances and preventing them from encountering those of a different class and/or race background. It's a classic example of selfishly withdrawing from the public sphere into a "gated" world.

Posted by jlr29 | March 5, 2008 5:17 PM

I started my son in a private school when he was pre-K. The plan was to keep him there until 4th grade and then go to public school. It wasn't a financial decision but one thought up before he ever entered school. He's in public now and studies without being prompted; rarely gets a C; and doesn't understand why other kids don't strive to do good work. He is not particularly interested in schoolwork (he's a jock through and through) but he does it because that's what you're supposed to do. I think the private school instilled that thinking. I think kids set their approach to education by Third grade.
I wanted him in public school because we live in an economically and racially diverse place and his school should reflect that.

Posted by carsick | March 5, 2008 5:24 PM

jlr29, it might shock you to realize that some students are going to have a much harder time of it academically and socially in a public school than in a private school.

Heck, some of the most snobbish parents I grew up with sent their kids to public school, while the parents who were desperate to find a school where their child wasn't going to academically implode were willing to shell out the necessary dollars to send him or her to a private school, where the student might get some more attention than he would otherwise.

Posted by Tyro | March 5, 2008 5:27 PM

shinyk

Respectfully, you are a perfect example of someone who doesn't know they are talking about confidently giving their opinion. What experience do you have as a kindergarten teacher or in education at all. Do you know what phonemic awareness is? Why is that important? What is a blend? Give me an example of a context mistake on a running record. What does research say about time outs? About phonics? What works better, reading centers or direct instruction? What class of kid is a better candidate for direct instruction? Why?

I could go on and on.

Posted by cw | March 5, 2008 5:44 PM

OK, maybe I was a bit harsh, there may be good reason for certain kids to get a private education at times.

However, I stand by my assertion that, as a society, we too often abandon public institutions when they underperform rather than try to fix them.

Posted by jlr29 | March 5, 2008 5:46 PM

Where are the columns from Ross and Rod and the rest of the conservative morality gang talking about how these complaining parents are "whining" and "phony"?

Pardon the rhetorical question.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | March 5, 2008 6:20 PM

I just feel oh so sad for all the rich people out there who might have to forego purchasing their ivory backscratchers to send the children to their elite private schools.

Sidwell Friends cost $26K. The horror!

Some of you all have no idea how this reads to someone who came from a third-rate Oregon high school with 3 AP courses total, only 1 of which was taught competently enough to prepare people to take the tests and where shop electives outnumbered academic electives.

Posted by Erik | March 5, 2008 6:43 PM

Respectfully, you are a perfect example of someone who doesn't know they are talking about confidently giving their opinion. What experience do you have as a kindergarten teacher or in education at all.

None. I dated a kindergarten teacher a few years ago and am parroting what she expressed about the necessities of her job and the uselessness of the required educational coursework, which gives me mild, second-hand familiarity and zero expertise. Maybe by accident, I am familiar with some of the terminology you're using ("phonemic awareness"), but not all of it ("blending?").

On the university level, I had one or two early eduction courses (taken as elective) and some high level engineering mathematics (taken as a prerequisite for a second undergraduate degree). The mathematics coursework gave me a new-found admiration for people who get graduate degrees in mathematics. From what I remember of the early educational coursework, I could have snorted three ambien before every class and breezed right through, which proves nothing by itself, but is fairly consistent from what I'd been told by my old friend, the kindergarten teacher.

Now, It's possible I'm remembering incorrectly. It's possible my few early education professors happened to be uniquely twittish. It's possible that both my very limited coursework and the opinion of my acquaintance are aberrant. It's possible that finding someone with the ability to judge "context mistakes on a running record" (vis a vis toddlers playing around with blocks and eating paste) is, as you say, at least as difficult as finding someone who can adequately teach String Theory to a disaffected bunch of high school seniors.

But, since you've already charged sexist pay discrimination in a system that, by design, makes sexist pay discrimination impossible, why should I think that?

Posted by Shinyk | March 5, 2008 6:53 PM

I think the fundamental problem is that people think they are "entitled" to be able to go to whatever school they want without consideration of how much the school costs. Which is idiotic.

I got to one of the most "expensive" public universities in the country (Rutgers in NJ)and pay about $5500 dollars a semester for tuition. Sure I could have gone to a school that cost 40,000 a year had I wanted to, but the idea of graduating debt free was pretty enticing.

The problem is that parents in middle and upper middle class families want their kids to go to big name schools, and will struggle financially to put them there. Then, they bitch and moan about the cost of higher education. It's ridiculous. There are tons of options out there that are extremely affordable (if you are bright but not financially well off it's pretty easy to get a full ride at a state school like Rutgers)

The problem is that people feel entitled to go anywhere they please without consideration of how much a school really costs.

Posted by NM | March 5, 2008 6:56 PM

I don't know most the terms CW lists -- he/she sounds more like someone from a school of education than someone who teaches kindergarten, and I do know a bunch of the former -- but I definitely know that I would much rather have my children study high school with a teacher who has a degree in mathematics than with a teacher who has a degree in teaching math from a school of education. I've seen both of those

Posted by No Name | March 5, 2008 7:34 PM

Shinyk

At least you have at least a little doubt. Kindergarten has chaned in the last 20 years. How long ago did you date that teacher.

About your assertion that sexist pay grades are impossible for teachers, I disagree. When you look at professions and compare the amount of responsibility and schooling necessary to do the job competently, you see that teaching is considerably underpaid. In Wisconsin the average beining teacher starts at $25K That's about $12 an hour. That's about what a starting bank teller gets, a job that a monkey could do. To get to the average teacher pay of about $45K takes around 15 years. So then you have to ask yourself, why is teaching so underpaid. I believe it is because it's always been woman's work. There is a pay gap between men and women, it makes sense that teachers who are mostly women would be paid less than men in similar occupations.

Posted by cw | March 5, 2008 7:37 PM

"I don't know most the terms CW lists -- he/she sounds more like someone from a school of education than someone who teaches kindergarten, and I do know a bunch of the former..."

So you know kindergarten teachers who didn't get an education degree? 99% all teachers go through ed school. That's where they learn how to teach. Just like doctors go to medical school and architects go to architect school. You don't know what I was talking about in my comment becasue you are not a teacher and have not gone through ed school any more than you would know what an architect or a dr. were talking about if the discusses their trades. And the idea that it is better to have someone with a degree in math rather than teaching has been well discredited. That was a trend of the last decade that failed. Why? Because the guy with the math degree didn't know how to teach. What is so wrong with admitting that teaching is difficult and complex art that requires a lot of training? Researched base training at that.

Posted by cw | March 5, 2008 8:51 PM

We pay more for education the closer it gets to JOB SEARCH time. When it will pay off most in material terms.

Also, little kids probably would do just as well to stay home longer (I'm thinking of scandinavians who don't bother trying to teach reading before age 7) and the real investment should be in breaking up the adolescent cliques. Have that age group in smaller classes, get them out of the school building and into the community. Our whole culture has become markedly more adolescent in part because of the group dynamics of junior high school. Yeah that's a wild claim, but noodle it over a bit. It's worth thinking about.

Posted by STS | March 5, 2008 8:57 PM

"Also, little kids probably would do just as well to stay home longer (I'm thinking of scandinavians who don't bother trying to teach reading before age 7)"

Of course, there's no connection between staying home later, and waiting to learn to read; Both I and my siblings learned to read prior kindergarten*, and this wasn't even viewed as "homeschooling"; My parents just thought it was the sort of thing parents did. Why delay what we were clearly ready for?

*To this day, I shudder at the thought of Dick and Jane.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | March 5, 2008 9:31 PM

Well, several comments.

90% of the kids who apply to Thomas Jefferson do not get in. They are stuck back in their local school unless they get a boundary exception to attend an IB school.

I object to the wording "stuck" in their local school. Compared to the rest of the country, FCPS schools are pretty excellent places to get "stuck" in. Yes, not everyone can go to TJ. Still, FCPS has not neglected its other schools. My local high school has a pretty extensive offering of AP and honors classes. One of our most popular AP classes has over 50% of the kids taking the course recieve the highest score on the test. We send a couple kids to the top universities every year.

The biggest problem I've noticed in the public schools is uneven teacher quality. Even within what is ostensibly the same course, experiences can vary widely with the instructor. For example, I've been taking AP US Gov with an incredible and dedicated teacher, and we're completing the course in the time frame we need to before the AP exam. Class is fun, and the teacher connects election happenings to the topics we're studying in class. Some of my friends, however, have the other teacher, who is several units behind and not covering all the material.

As far as my experiences go--I've had the good teachers, and I've had the bad teachers. It happens. All in all, not bad for a 'free' education.

On the language thing--there are some early foreign language programs available, at least in FCPS. My parents successfully petitioned to have me moved to a Spanish immersion elementary school. I've haven't gotten around to working on learning a third language yet (French or Japanese is next, I think), so I can't comment on the differences between early and late language learning. However, I will say that a lot of my immersion classmates who dropped the language didn't retain much. Even the ones who did immersion up until 6th grade, then didn't continue, really don't remember much at all. However, for the students who stayed in, it's proved a huge advantage in the language classes at the middle and high school.

Posted by E | March 5, 2008 11:45 PM

I'll join the "teachers are underpaid" chorus. I make about the same as a teacher that I did as a food runner/busser in a very nice restaurant, and have to work more hours to make it. I only moved out of the restaurant business because I was sick of people asking me when I was going to get a real job. Although it doesn't pay better, when you tell people that you're a teacher they smile and nod rather than interrogating you.

Teachers are underpaid not because teaching is easy, but because Americans largely don't care very much whether it's done well. Pretty much any person can get an education/humanities degree somewhere and find a teaching job, and so you can find enough warm bodies to fill all the classrooms at 25-50k/year. Parents and policymakers don't spend enough time in the classroom to understand that a lot of those people have no idea how to teach. If there's a lack of adequate training, competition to enter the field, and compensation for being in the field, you're going to to get a labor force of incompetents, which is what we have.

It's easy to assume that teaching multiplication is easy because almost all adults can multiply, but teaching a student (especially a student with emotional problems, oppositional behavior, apathy towards school, or a learning disability) is very different from demonstrating that you know how to multiply. One can teach Algebra 1 or Geometry to a motivated, intelligent, unencumbered student student in maybe 40 hours of direct tutorial instruction (with homework). We take 100-200 classroom hours to teach these subjects and assign countless hours of homework, but even at the end of this time many of the students flunk or demonstrate only a fleeting and partial understanding. This problem has many causes, but try to teach successfully basic math to a room of 20 kids who are all over the place intellectually, academically, socially and emotionally before you tell us it's easy.

Also, I'll note that credentials have very little to do with quality of instruction. I went to a private school where almost no one had an education degree, but most of the teachers knew things about education that you can't learn in an Ed school. At the same time, I had some atrocious college professors with PhDs. It's all about the individual and whether he or she

1. cares about teaching
2. has enough knowledge about the subject to instruct meaningfully
3. has the qualities of a good teacher (patience, caring, organization, rigor, charisma, etc.)
4. works in an environment that enables good teaching.

Posted by cgaros | March 5, 2008 11:48 PM

Kindergarten has changed in the last 20 years. How long ago did you date that teacher.

A little under 3 years ago. I took my last education undergrad elective a little over five years ago.

99% all teachers go through ed school. That's where they learn how to teach. Just like doctors go to medical school and architects go to architect school.

I have to wonder if you're just selling extreme hyperbole and hoping no one knows enough about this topic to notice. I seem to recall almost half of all states don't require Ed school, and I'm pretty sure that WV, NV, AL, and AR, specifically, couldn't give a hoot if you've been to Ed school (I could throw in a dozen more states that I'm pretty sure, but not as sure about, and this is just from memory). If close to half of states don't require Ed school, there's no reason for 99% of prospective teachers to pay to attend it, so your 99% mark is so illogical as to be impossible.

Also, Ed school takes less than a year and isn't exactly as arduous as medical school (I don't remember ever seeing someone sleeping in the library with an open ECE book in his or her lap). I think some universities even allow for incorporating the graduate year of ed into the senior year of undergrad. The only thing that seems to arguably require any real effort are those external whosiwhutsits (don't remember the jargon), but I don't exactly imagine they could be compared to a medical internship in an ER.

About your assertion that sexist pay grades are impossible for teachers, I disagree.

How? Teachers are unionized. Union pay scales are uniform throughout a schooldistrict (I think, in some cases, throughout the state) and count only 1) seniority, 2) extent of graduate education. Simple, non-gendered, checklist criteria. Work for five years, get a 5k bump. Get a master's, get a 3k bump.

The only way to disagree that these simple, uniform criteria cannot possibly be sexist is to say women are uniquely 1) unable to work in the same place for long periods of time or 2) can't study hard enough to get graduate degrees. I know you seem big on exaggeration, but do you really want to make either of those claims? Why not just admit that teacher's union pay grades are structured in such a way that they can't be sexist?

In Wisconsin the average beining teacher starts at $25K That's about $12 an hour.

This is another statement that makes me think you're exaggerating completely. Schoolteachers work 180-185 days per year. 25k/180-185/8=$17 per hour (rounding down), which is roughly 140% of the amount you've stated. Even if my hour number is off by 1 or 2 (I doubt it) or the amount of days is off by as much as 15 (which is plausible), the hourly pay rate still doesn't approach $12/hour mark you've provided. You also can't claim summer courses should be included in the number of days, since schoolteachers get paid extra for electing to teach them.

Furthermore, this argument is, again, misleading. You're providing me with the minimum starting salary, not the mean or median salary. Again, schoolteachers are unionized (more teachers are unionized than have been to ed school, I'd imagine). The unions have elected to negotiate big pay raises for seniority and graduate degrees, but have left minimum starting salary static for more than a decade. The ending salary after 25 years with a PhD in whichever topic schoolteachers teach is more than triple the $25,000 figure you've provided. $75,000 for 180 days of 8 or 9 hour/day work is extraordinary.

Still, starting schoolteachers are one of the most underpaid professional classes in the country. However, the most appropriate party to blame is not the communities that don't appreciate them, but the union, which hung them out to dry for the disproportionate benefit of the senior membership. I'd bet cgarros has looked at those pay charts, calculated the figure of a lazy, senior colleague and gritted his/her teeth at least once.

Finally, cw, I should note that everything you've thrown at me, besides the weak, bogus claim of sexist pay rates is beside my initial points:

"Studying University chemistry under a master chemist is going to have more impact on a future chemical engineering career than studying elementary school cursive under a master calligrapher will have on, well, any career."

"It's harder to find someone with an undergrad in education and a graduate degree in mathematics than it is to find someone who posesses patience and a bachelor's in Early Childhood Education."

To clarify: Having elite education later is more complex, difficult to acquire, important and therefore, more valuable because early education is pretty uniform and uncomplicated. This is why people are willing to pay more for an elite prep school or university than they are for an elite elementary school.

You take the opposite view, but since most of the tangential stuff you've told me is inaccurate, hyperbolic or misleading, why should I think you'd be right about this?

Posted by Shinyk | March 6, 2008 4:12 AM

> Studying University chemistry under a master
> chemist is going to have more impact on a future
> chemical engineering career than studying
> elementary school cursive under a master
> calligrapher will have on, well, any career.

Actually, as an engineer and parent I would say that a true intense exploratory science program for 1st-3rd graders would in the long run do more good than the college classes. The problem is that only a small percentage of people want to be teachers and of that percent only a very few can run the kind of program that really engages and enriches children's minds. Certainly very few experts in science and math are good teachers and even of those few would be able to handle a class of little kids (nor want to).

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | March 6, 2008 7:47 AM

"You take the opposite view, but since most of the tangential stuff you've told me is inaccurate, hyperbolic or misleading, why should I think you'd be right about this?"

You are not going to believe anything I say becasue your purpose here--like most people's purpose, sometimes mine included, unfortunately--is to blather. People like to talk way more than they like to listen. People like to see their words on the screen, more than they like to learn about something. Blogs attract people who need to argue and win arguments, but winning arguments is not the same thing as being right. You can sit there in your pjs and think up all arguments you want, or you could actually do a little research and learn something. But that's not why we are here. This subject is somthing I happen to know about having recently gotten my certificate in a post-bacclauriat program and taught 3rd grade, but you had a teacher girlfriend three years ago. I guess that trumps me.

But you know what? I'm done. You have won the argument. Feel the rush. Enjoy it. For the next ten seconds you are a master of the blog-o-verse. I am addicted to the blog-o-verse but this is my last comment, and when I push that submit button, my first day of blog-sobriety. THis is a mugs game. It's aggression sublimation for losers. Pretty much like superhero comics are for weak boys. I'm going cold turkey. Have fun fellas. I'm getting a new hobby. I don't know what it is yet, but hopefully it will be more productive. Here I go...

Posted by cw | March 6, 2008 12:39 PM

It's not about winning. It's about discussion. You should know more about this topic than I do, but instead of using that knowledge to convince me that you're right or pursuede me that I'm wrong, you try to feed me bullshit. If you're right and I'm wrong, I'd like to know, but you'll have to convince me without trying to feed me bullshit.

Posted by Shinyk | March 6, 2008 1:56 PM

Actually, as an engineer and parent I would say that a true intense exploratory science program for 1st-3rd graders would in the long run do more good than the college classes.

Cw, this response from Cranky Observer (including everything that comes after) is exactly what I wanted from you. He/she disagrees with something I've said, without saying anything exaggeratory or misleading, bases it in his/her expertise, and in doing so, teaches me something I didn't know, which is the whole point of engaging in discussions on a blog like this.

Posted by Shinyk | March 6, 2008 3:37 PM