Or, ya know, you could pay teachers more across the board and do away with the loan tomfuckery.
What has changed? Why is teaching in America such a terrible job?
Three months off a year, government level medical benefits, and lucrative pensions after only 25 years (sometimes only 20). Not to mention tenure.
Schools are paying enough to not have any lack of candidates for open positions. Their real problem is to equate “teaching certificates’ and credentials with teaching ability.
Great!
> Three months off a year.
This is like saying that ski instructors get nine months off a year. It's not paid leave.
This is one of those claims that in a way has become 'common wisdom', but that I've seen no actual evidence of. I wonder if it's just one of those talking points of people who want to cut taxes that has never been challenged or at least defined, like "government waste". It's like an end-user saying 'my computer's software is buggy' - that doesn't tell me anything, and for all I know it's your power supply, monitor, or a million other possibilities, or even a matter of perception by a user in a bad mood or with a bias.
Especially we don't know the problem definition: Which administrators are overpaid? How frequently? Is it certain administrative jobs? In certain size districts? Is it due to some other problem? And which administrators are underpaid?
Finally, while we should pay attention to these issues, let's not catastrophize every problem into a organizational disaster. I know plenty of administrators in business who are overpaid; the perfect human institution doesn't exist.
It also is challenging to make apples:apples comparison between teacher and administrator salaries as the contracts are structured very diferently. That said - anecdotally, admin salaries are commonly 2x+ average teacher salaries in districts that I have had experience teaching within.
Administrative salaries are up, but generally in line with increases in research funding (research funding has a lot of administrative overhead. Read OMB Circular A-21 if you want to see some example details.) Yes, there are reports of some over-payments at the top executive levels, but just like in a corporation, overpaying the C-Level executives by $10/mil a year just doesn't move the needle for companies with 10's of billions of dollars a year in revenue.
Administration is growing because compliance requirements are growing.
Whether they are or not, many firmly believe they are underpaid.
It would be interesting to know where you got that. This is an area where people feel free to spread disinformation so I'd be careful.
> In Arizona, a state not known for education spending, spends close to $15k per teacher on pension contributions. Add in medical and other benefits, 3 months vacation, tenure, payroll taxes and the typical teacher is near there.
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_211.60.a...
The interesting thing about Arizona is that salaries - which aren't great - are trending downward.