The biggest sham in public education is this idea of "a teacher's salary" as if an english teacher is equivalent to a math or chemistry teacher. While we can go for hours about the intangible values present in all subjects #allsubjectsmatter, the reality is that someone qualified to be a STEM teacher is accepting a loss in opportunity cost in our current system.
Why would someone with a math background take $40k to teach a bunch of kids math when they can learn a bit of python and make $140k doing data science? Some do, but outside of rare exceptions, you aren't going to get the best talent.
You also end up with teachers who can't be bothered to learn how the subject is used in the real world. I barely put effort into learning matrices or complex numbers in high school.
"You just have to learn it, There aren't any practical uses for it" said my highschool algebra teacher told me when I asked what these are used for.
Not everyone is optimizing for the maximum amount of dollars they can squeeze out of an hour of work. Plenty of people would be happy to make less, e.g. a dual-income couple, someone right out of college who needs resume experience, someone who's semi-retired and likes to work with kids, someone who doesn't exactly need the money but wants the benefits, and so on.
We need good teachers for every subject for every student. That means paying them wages that are competitive with their other options. We are not going to meet national demand by relying on people who are "happy to make less, e.g. a dual-income couple, someone right out of college who needs resume experience, someone who's semi-retired and likes to work with kids, someone who doesn't exactly need the money but wants the benefits,"
> english teacher is equivalent to a math or chemistry teacher
Do they actually have different qualifications? Each of them has to be trained for a teaching job and, er, remember most of their school program?
In the same vein instructor at the bootcamp is someone who's good at motivational shouting and in all likelihood isn't missing opportunities to serve as a commando.
The fact that they dont is another big problem with public schooling.
The fact that all teachers are trained the same is a big problem. Personally I am fan of not having "trained teachers" for anything beyond grade school
After that we should be using subject matter experts
> After that we should be using subject matter experts
No we should be using teachers, people trained to effectively communicate and teach concepts of a subject.
A subject matter expert can be an expert in a subject but terrible at communicating and teaching that concept. Knowing that concept is not equivalent to effective communication. This is analogous to Great Software engineers becoming mangers with no managing talent whatsoever.
Why would someone with a math background take $40k to teach a bunch of kids math when they can learn a bit of python and make $140k doing data science? Some do, but outside of rare exceptions, you aren't going to get the best talent.
You also end up with teachers who can't be bothered to learn how the subject is used in the real world. I barely put effort into learning matrices or complex numbers in high school.
"You just have to learn it, There aren't any practical uses for it" said my highschool algebra teacher told me when I asked what these are used for.