America
today is facing one of the deepest economic downturns since the great
depression of the nineteen thirties. Many individuals have proposed a plethora
of solutions, but many sociologists agree that the best long term solution to
this problem is that we improve education in this country. One way of improving
education is to provide students with very high quality teachers. Though high
quality teachers are the solution not many well trained individuals are not
willing to become teachers because of the low beginning salaries and low
salaries in general. Teaches do not have high enough salaries for the work they
do which leads to other problems like poor quality teachers, and hence poor
education in America’s public school system, so the people of America should
promote laws and encourage congress to pass bills that would increase teacher
salary.
The problem will be defined as the
low salaries teachers in America receive. The solution will be defined as
increasing teacher salaries and doing this through the promotion of policies
that promote those increases. In this paper high teacher quality will be
defined as a teacher who is well trained and competent in their job, and
provide their students with a good education. Teacher salary will be defined as
the amount of money a teacher makes in the beginning of their career, and
throughout that career. Policies will be defined as laws and bills that will
raise the beginning and overall salaries of teachers. Prestige will be defined
as respect and admiration and considered level of achievement of quality.
Good
teaching is crucial to the success of our nation. If children can have a firm
base and a good education they will be able to be more productive higher contributors
to our society. According to Michelle A. Rhee in her article, “Policies Should
Reflect The Importance of Teaching” she describes a study conducted by Harvard
that found students go further in life and have a higher quality of life if
their teachers were high performing. In his article, “Teacher Quality: What’s
Wrong with U.S. Strategy?” author Marc Tucker describes how other nations are achieving
greater education standards, what they are doing, and what the US should be
doing for education. For example he says, “One key to Singapore’s success in
attracting high-achieving high school graduates into teaching, he said, is
making sure that compensation is not an issue when these graduates select a career.
To do that, the Singapore government sets beginning teachers’ compensation at a
level comparable to that of the other leading professions. In Japan, salaries
for beginning teachers are about equal to those of beginning engineers.” If American
teachers were paid as much as engineers the US would have a great amount of
high quality teachers. In the article, “The Social Position of Schoolteachers Expectations
and Realities” by F.G. Ziiatdinova the problems with the Russian education
system are discussed. America holds a lot of the same values of prestige of the
teaching profession that Russia does.
This problem in education has the
power to greatly impact the entire nation. In the short run poor teacher
compensation effects teachers directly, and like a pebble that is thrown into a
pond and created a ripple effect, student are effected, and eventually our
entire nation. It is The cause of the problem
is that teaching is not viewed as a prestigious job and the governments is not
willing to increases taxes in order to increase teacher salary, nor are the
people willing to pay higher taxes for an increase in teacher salary. People
today are beginning to see the correlation between importance of teachers,
quality of teachers, and prestige of the job in a monetary way. There is a phrase that states it is easier said than
done, Americans need to step up to the plate, understand the importance of
education, and be willing to pay higher taxes for higher salaries for teachers.
As a nation we also need to write letters congress, and make the government pass
the laws that will increase the teacher salaries.
The
future of our nation is at stake. We as the people of this great nation are severely
lagging behind in the way of education. By increasing the quality of teachers
in schools students will be able to obtain a better education, and one of the
best and most reasonable ways to get higher performing teachers into the school
system is to increase the teachers beginning and overall salary. Teacher a crucial
and important members of our society, and only by the America public speaking up
and voicing the need to enact policies that will increase the salaries will the
problem be solved.
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