I wrote a paper about
teacher salaries for my Freshman English class in college. My professor told me that
teachers were getting
fine salaries, and that teacher salaries shouldn't be my concern, but then, he was a single bachelor living on frozen pizza and beer.
Of course teacher salaries are my concern! It should be everyone's concern!
The less we pay these professionals, the more they move to jobs they can afford to live on. This means that the quality of teacher goes down. Don't get me wrong, there are many who are willing to sacrifice the money for the love of the children, but that becomes less as the cost of living increases. Students are not receiving the education they need to succeed further in life; instead they are struggling with the overwhelming and ever increasing student to teacher ratios. Struggling students can no longer ask questions and get help unless they go outside of normal class hours, which for many isn't always possible.
Teachers don't get half the credit they deserve. Teacher awards are given out yearly, and I bet not even fifty people know who received it. Meanwhile, stars that aren't known by more than fifty people personally get a nomination, and are remembered for decades.
Teachers do a bit more for our children's minds than TV stars, and it's about time that that recognition was given where it was due.
If we want to thrive and prosper as a country, we can't wait for our children to go to college to begin educating them. They need to start learning the difference between verb and noun before 12th grade. If we wait for college, many of them will lose interest in learning, or have little desire to struggle through the process of catching up to their peers.
That may sound like an exaggeration, but where I went to school, I didn't learn this difference. I had to switch districts before I learned it, and by then I was so far behind my peers that I struggled for years.
By increasing teacher's salaries, we encourage people to go into the profession, and increase the ability to keep good teachers around. We also increase the ability to weed out the bad teachers. Overall this will allow a better environment for young minds, and better lifestyles for educators.