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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They do better than college professors.  My university's retirement package is not nearly as generous.  Many college professors work into their seventies for this reason.

Also, let's just dispense with the myth that every kindergarten teacher is actually a potential CEO, nuclear physicist, brain surgeon, etc.  It's just not true.  That's like saying that everyone who joins the postal service is doing us a huge favor since otherwise he would have gone to Harvard and majored in computer engineering.  Enough is enough already.  If someone is earning less as a teacher, it doesn't necessarily follow that they could have earned more as something else.  [/quote]

The way things are now, yes I agree with you, and I think what you've touched on is a big part of the problem. We are not attracting the best and brightest to the field. How can we expect our children to excel if the people educating them are unmotivated, overworked, and have only a cursory understanding of the subjects they teach? This is not to say that there are not brilliant teachers out there, but they are the exception instead of the rule. Most brilliant people have more choices, and most will choose more lucrative and more appreciated fields. [/quote]

Yes.  Not everyone has the potential to be a rocket scientist.

We don't necessarily need brilliant, and there are very, very few brilliant people.  I am close enough to that --  PhD from a top-ten program; elite undergrad; excellent job in my field...  I started out as a teacher before returning to school.  Not through Teach For America, but I was the kind of person TFA thinks is the solution (I am older than that program). I was good in the classroom, but certainly not "brilliant" at it.   I got worn down by the constant barrage of criticism and the unrealistic demands.  I got worn down by being in a school with few resources.  I had a fairly deep understanding of my subject and was not unmotivated.  What I didn't have was the ability to work in a loud chaotic environment, or great intuition about what is going on in the adolescent head.   What we need is someone with the right skills and talents placed in a supportive environment to do their job.  [/quote]

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