So now they’ll be able to afford a studio apartment in midtown?

Hey, I’ll all about this.  I’m all for teachers getting paid what they’re worth.  If I had been paid better in Chicago, and had been able to afford a house, with a garage where I could park my vehicle instead of having to pay to park in the street, well, yeah, I might have stayed a little longer.

But pay isn’t the whole picture.  Someone commented on that story about being able to change the entire system, and that’s really what teachers need.  Freedom to do what is completely best for kids outside of the realm of government.

I also heard an interesting comment in this video that Jeff posted and it’s the same comment I’ve made more than a few times on a local forum(although not as concisely as the presenter put it).

“Good data costs a lot more than we want to spend.  Good data is the work the kids do every single day, it’s not the answers they get on a test.”

Until governments are willing to spend the time and money looking at the things kids do every day, and measuring progress over the course of a year, instead of looking at a single day, no amount of increased teacher pay will make a lick of difference.  Yes, it might help recruit better teachers and give reason to get rid of ones who don’t live up to high standards, but until teachers have more control over their own classrooms, and have someone higher up who OPENS doors rather than closing them, it won’t help.

I think a better plan is what HUD has been quietly doing for years.  Provide a housing incentive for teachers to live in the places they teach.  Take home ownership off the table for teachers, and allow them less worry about where their money is going.  This would amount to a huge effective pay increase for teachers and their families all over the country, not just in those areas where it’s virtually impossible to own a home on a teacher’s salary.

I also really want to know what our current candidates for President think about education, but we haven’t heard word one from either of them, and education is almost always a hot topic in election years.  This year, though, everyone is distracted, and I think it would be a huge mistake for whoever becomes president to continue NCLB in its current form.