Should teachers be paid based on subjects they teach?

At some levels of education, this is already the case. Faculty salaries for professors in business programs are a good 20K higher than those of faculty in liberal arts programs.

No, not really. Since the students need all of the subjects for a well-rounded education, why cal out the subject matter. i do think teacher’s with advanced degrees (directly related to what they are teaching) should earn more.

Universities tend to do this to attract people into teaching professions when they could be making more, arguably, in the private sector.

If a high school teacher had a Masters in their subject, they got paid more, regardless of the subject. Who is to judge, ‘which is hardest’? We had art teachers who just cruised and let the kids run riot, and then we finally got one who was a REAL teacher and she had a proper syllabus and the kids had to learn things as well as draw and do crafts. Most of those kids took that class for an ‘easy credit’ but she had them whipped into shape. I don’t think she was paid enough for what she put up with. The kids that took biology and physics were the kids on the fast track to University and were there to learn and their grade point average meant something to them. So…. I don’t think we can say which ‘subjects’ are hard. They all have the ONE subject and that is to EDUCATE the kids… not do tricks on the blackboard, demonstrating their own proficiency of their chosen subject.

IMO teachers should be paid 6 digit salaries. We want the best of the best teaching our children, and many people are passing up teaching in favor of banking jobs, doctoral positions, etc, etc.

Cut excess spending on campus’, books/materials, computers, sports, etc…. Pump excess money into their pay and give them much stricter rules to keep their jobs.

—> Profit (aka kids start doing better)

As far as by subject, I would not put some as more important than others no.

It sort of seems absurd to think that basket weaving is going to be as important to a child’s future as physics will be—at least in terms of potential income. The marketplace determines salaries in the world of employment. It seems like it probably extends its claws into the world of education.

We might value theater and art and music the same as accounting and calculus and computer programming in terms of life satisfaction. But in terms of potential income, it’s clear what is far more valuable.

Perhaps we shouldn’t judge subjects by their potential income, but we do, it seems to me. And we can’t just wave a magic wand and make basket weaving as important as physics, nor can we wave that wand and pay teachers 6 figure salaries. The market says teachers aren’t that valuable. Some of them are. Some teachers already do make some pretty decent incomes. Others don’t. I couldn’t tell you why without investigating individual circumstances.

Absolutely not! The teacher who does remedial teaching can work just as hard as the teacher of advanced students. Teachers should be treated as professionals, like doctors and lawyers. This is what is done in Finland There are no standardized tests in Finland. Students are not segregated by ability until high school Teachers are required to get a master’s degree and are paid fairly well, though still less than the average salary of a college graduate. Teachers and principals are in charge of drawing up the curriculum. They are willing to try innovative approaches and it is common for teachers to collaborate.

The best teachers see teaching as a calling and the best reward that you can give them is to show respect for their abilities. I do tutoring and I really enjoy teaching, but I would never become a teacher in the U.S. The way teachers are treated here is awful. If we had a system like Finland, I would gladly trade my current position for teaching, even if it meant a cut in salary.

“We might value theater and art and music the same as accounting and calculus and computer programming in terms of life satisfaction. But in terms of potential income, it’s clear what is far more valuable.”

So @wundayatta, I assume you mean to be implying that theater, art, and music are more valuable? That’s what the salaries of Leonardo DiCaprio and Bono suggest, anyway, especially since you made your answer about potential income. Or maybe you meant the opposite and were failing to take account of the fact that this subject is not very clear-cut after all?

If we’re talking about secondary education, then I do not think we should pay teachers based on their subject. I think we should raise the standards on all teachers, fire the incompetent ones, and pay those who make the cut more across the board. Difficulty is relative at that level of high school. I was extremely good at math, but I was never very good in art class. A lot of my friends were artists, meanwhile, while almost none of them were great mathematicians. One of my fellow classmates lost out on being valedictorian because he had no talent for creative writing (and so had trouble in English class). Our actual valedictorian, on the other hand, was good at everything she tried.

Ultimately, though, secondary education is not vocational training except in the very most attenuated sense. Secondary education prepares you for learning things in greater depth and exposes you to a wide variety of subjects. It teaches general skills and instills useful habits that enrich a student’s life even after the content has long been forgotten. These skills are often useful on the job, of course, and being exposed to different subjects might help you figure out what you want to do for a living. But that doesn’t make education primarily a matter of vocational training. It just happens to be the case that education is applicable to all aspects of life.

Tell me: in terms of absolute (not financial) worth, which subjects are more valuable?

@Patton I was thinking of the median wages in the fields as a reasonable potential income. I guess I was a bit misleading there, relying on the idea that most people think artists don’t make much income, in general. You clearly think otherwise. I guess you have this idea that everybody can and does become a star. Man, I wish I lived in your world. I would so not be working in a 9–5 job!

@wundayatta In high school, I had an English teacher and an Art teacher that taught me more about character and self reliance that stayed with me my entire life. I had a music teacher who taught me about self-discipline. How much is THAT worth?

@cazzie If more people think as you did, I have to believe the world would be better off. Unfortunately, in this day and age, everyone wants you to prove your worth in terms of the bottom line. Self-discipline? Character? Self-reliance? Alas, you’d have had to have learned them elsewhere. Does that mean you never would have learned them?

@wundayatta I know grown people without those traits and I am sure you do too. No one currently pays me and for the past 10 years I have been doing the most important job I will ever do in my entire life and I didn’t go to University to learn how to do it either. ;o)

I know plenty of people with good character who don’t make loads of money and I know people with loads of money and no character.

When I hired people at the accounting firm, I didn’t hire for skills. I can train people up. What I couldn’t change or train was their character or work ethic. I hired the right person/personality. I wasn’t hiring pieces of paper in the resume. If they hadn’t learned self discipline or trustworthiness or a sense of humour, I wasn’t going to hire them, regardless of what schools they graduated from. The undergrads doing accounting part time were much less trouble than the ‘double degree’ guys who thought they warranted partnership simply because they went to school for two more years and were so completely full of themselves they ‘couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the directions were written on the bottom.’ to borrow a quote from my father. (I was in charge of hiring ‘new recruits’ not Associates. Partners hired Associates and they brought in some real arrogant pricks, omg, and they regretted it.)

So, from my experience, people of good character will (and have done) add worth to my bottom line. They will be reliable and self disciplined and be good listeners.

@wundayatta You said “potential income,” not “median expected income.” You’ll notice I put that word “potential” in bold just to make sure that you would notice my point. Good reading skills there. In any case, I think it’s stupid to judge high school teachers based on what their students might become if they get a BA, MA, or PhD in their subject. The students aren’t in high school to get college degrees, they’re there to get high school diplomas.

Since you can’t get into college without a diploma or a GED, but you can get into college without a computer class, the core classes look pretty valuable to me. Looking at elementary or high school in economic terms just seems wrong, anyway. We already complain about schools being little conformance factories. Seeing them purely in vocational terms will only deepen that problem.