Well said, Bill. I think in education, perhaps above all, we don't get what we don't pay for. I'll give you a case in point from an article in the UK Times Education Supplement which is a weekly authoritavie guide for professionals. A senior highly trained and highly experienced teacher kept an accurate log of time expended over marking examination scripts against what he was paid for the task (a per unit rate) - it amounted to around $5 per hour which his teenage son was surpassing working in a bar.
Now, I don't know the detail of what it's currently like in the States, but I do know that teaching as a profession has suffered an almost endless spiral of disapprobation by society at large over the last 80 years. In the UK we pay a newly qualified teacher, to whom we largely entrust the major civilising influence on our future generations, far less than the lowest rank in the army, the police force, the social workers and prison officers into whose subsequent care those who fail in school will probably fall..... Now, if we truly valued the role of education in our societies, rather than just paying lip service when looking for someone to blame, perhaps this could not remain true for long.
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