Being married to a teacher I think if education was based on individual performance and not union bargaining agreements; crappy teachers would get the oust and successful teachers would get the appropriate amount of money. Of course I don't know how that'd REALLY work. The measurement of success or performance would be hard. What if the teacher had some real dumbass kids that were lazy and never handed work in? I do not feel it's fair to tie test scores to salary. I do think it'd be fair to have performance evaluations like many jobs have by the supervisor (principal). With a requirement of a principal to be a teacher in the past not just someone with a degree.
My wife works her ass off as a 8th grade science teacher, track and field coach, cross country coach, and head of the middle school science department. She has a bachelors and masters degree from Penn State, and when I graduate from a 2 year associates degree program to be a cardiovascular technician in a catherization lab I'll probably make just as much as she does. Cross country is a fall sports season and practice begins before school does. So do you think she is fairly paid, or am I unfairly paid? I know one thing I couldn't be a teacher. Many of the parents are lazy assholes that expect the teachers to babysit and raise their kids for them. It's ridiculous what happens in public schools. The outraged parents in any school district should be outraged at other parents first if you ask me. Of course there are some exceptions to that.
It's hard to make sense of a situation as convoluted as the public education system. Ever since the Department of Education reared its head things got complicated. Then countless other laws either at the state or federal level made things even more complicated. All I do know is my wife wants to get out of teaching after doing it for 4 years now. She'd like to migrate more towards education policy (actually using her masters degree) because dealing with lazy kids and lazy parents is taxing and will wear almost anyone down.
